The main Pingtung County Library building, reopened in 2021, has a glass curtain wall that overlooks a wood of lush green camphor trees. Looking out from inside one can see the blue sky and verdant surroundings, earning the building the nickname “forest library.”

In fact, this is a building that dates back more than 30 years and was formerly the Pingtung County Cultural Center. Before its renovation, to access the Zhongzheng Library people had to enter from Dalian Road and walk along a boulevard of tall palm trees, then cross a paved courtyard in the hot sun to enter the building, which looked like an enormous military command post.

Walking up the spiral staircase, the whole of the library space unfolds before one’s eyes.

Responding to world trends

Because this structure, which was once one of Taiwan’s major cultural buildings, lacked adequate space and its facilities were falling into disrepair, renovation work was begun in 2018.

Pingtung does not enjoy financial and cultural resources comparable to Taiwan’s six special municipalities, so architect Chang Ma Lone of Mayu Architects, which was commissioned for the project, recommended to county magistrate Pan Men-an that rather than building an entirely new library, it would be cheaper to renovate and enlarge the existing building. This would also preserve the character and historical significance of the original structure and extend its cultural legacy. 

By preserving and rejuvenating the old structure, the project has avoided generating the vast amounts of demolition waste that would have been produced by tearing the building down, and thus conforms to the concept of sustainability. It also fits in with the criteria nowadays used for selecting the winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which for the last five years has not prioritized innovative, eye-catching landmark designs, but has focused on buildings’ response to climate change, environmental change, and human needs.

The Pingtung County Library expresses the ideals of sustainable architecture, creating a friendly relationship between the original building and its surroundings. At the 2022 Architizer A+Awards, the building won recognition in two categories: It was the Popular Choice Winner in the Adaptive Reuse category, and earned a Special Mention in the Libraries category. The awards drew global attention to this Taiwanese library.

The view from a secluded reading spot in the Pingtung County Library.

The newly added lobby includes a coffee shop and a branch of the Eslite bookstore chain, greatly enhancing the functionality of the library’s public space.

Renovating the user interface

The team at Mayu Architects asked themselves, “What are the functions of a library in the digital era of the 21st century?” Architect Chen Yu-lin, who was a member of the design team for the project, says: “Our conclusion was that not only do books nowadays have to compete with digital media, but modern libraries have to compete with other cultural facilities such as museums and art galleries.”

How could their library stand out in this competitive environment? The Mayu team applied the concept of “renovating the user interface”—much like updating a computer’s operating system—to meet contemporary needs.

The new lobby extending out from the old structure is the new “user interface” that Chen is talking about. There is a coffee shop here as well as a branch of the Eslite bookstore, and sometimes the space is cleared for exhibitions or lectures, drawing in people who don’t often go into libraries.

The addition of this lobby is a stroke of genius, transforming the former motorcycle parking lot hidden amidst a wood of camphor trees into a large indoor space. It also relocates the library’s main entrance from the south side to the west side. In the past you had to walk a long way around to enter the building, but now there is just a short stroll along a shaded, verdant walkway, creating a welcoming and friendly feeling.

“The library’s nature as a public space also derives from this sense of welcome,” emphasizes Chen. Libraries are the most familiar cultural facilities to most residents, and are the most public of public buildings. The new Pingtung County Library draws citizens in and meets the preferences and needs of people of all ages.

A reading area on the third floor of the Pingtung County Library.

As renovated by architect Chang Ma Lone, the Pingtung County Library is a manifestation of the concepts of sustainable architecture. (courtesy of Mayu Architects

The evolution of public space

The nature of the former cultural center, which represented progress back in the day, was to provide a public space where people could share in a single activity, such as listening to a concert or attending a flag-raising ceremony. “But to me,” says Chen, “the nature of public space as I define it today is to have every­one in a single space each doing different things.”

For example, on the third floor, as well as the collections of comic books and multimedia materials that appeal to young people, there is a large staircase area, which was formerly a poorly ventilated mezzanine in the heart of the building, where books were shelved. The design team removed the bookshelves, knocked out the mezzanine and transformed the space into a two-story white staircase and activity area leading up to the fourth floor. Today, young people often sit backwards on the staircase, using the stairs as a desk where they can write and discuss their homework. The stairs can also serve as seating for activities such as film showings or lectures. 

The library is designed to be like a network of streets where people can wander around, and, says Chen, “It’s fun to get a little lost.” But if you do get lost, just walk on and you will immediately know where you are. Even if you just stroll randomly, following your instincts, it’s easy to find the exits, bathrooms, and main areas. This is one of the objectives of public building design.

Architect Chen Yu-lin believes that through understanding the land, buildings that arise from the land can become symbolic of Taiwan. 

The Pingtung County Library is the only library in all of Taiwan to have a slate slab structure within it; it houses an indigenous literature area.

The ambience of a reading space

The main color used in the lobby of the Pingtung County Library is black, with brown wood. The pillars and walls do not follow an unimaginative vertical pattern, but are composed of parallel lines of triangles formed by the intersection of the V-shaped pillars with the ceiling. Everywhere there are triangular elements, from the skylights to the windows to the mezzanine and the hanging lights. This idea was borrowed from the ornamentation on the jet-black slate houses of the Paiwan indigenous people, and transformed into a modern representative pattern.

Speaking of slate houses, the Pingtung County Library actually includes a genuine Paiwan slate house. However, because it fell into disrepair over the years and was on the fourth floor, it became a dark and unused space that people didn’t care to enter.

The design team opened up an entrance through one of the walls, and turned the house into an area that one must pass through to get from the third to the fourth floor. Library staff adorned the structure with shell ginger, millet, and lamps, and turned it into an area for indigenous people’s literature. Students can often be seen sitting in the chairs or on the floor of the slate house doing their homework.

The question of what kind of space is suited to reading printed books is one of the focal points of modern library design. “Our answer is to make a place where one can be distracted.” Chen explains this seemingly counterintuitive approach by saying that if one wants to concentrate then one can just go to a “study center” (a place that rents out quiet spaces to study). “We thought about this carefully and decided that the best place to read novels is a place where your mind can wander.” But here you can drink a coffee, imagine the scenes in the books, get lost in thought, and look at the greenery outside.

The glass curtain wall reflecting a camphor grove produces a sense of overlapping greenery.

The aluminum slats around the building’s crown produce alternating light and shade. As time passes, the light that filters into the library continually changes.

Tainan Public Library: A cultural landmark

If you want to sit by a window, read, or just daydream, the Tainan Public Library, with all kinds of chairs, sofas, and window-side reading desks, is another good place to go.

The Tainan Public Library dates back 103 years. Because the old building was dilapidated, during the tenure as mayor of Tainan of current ROC vice-­president Lai Ching-te (William Lai), NT$1.8 billion was budgeted to construct a new library. Work began in 2017 and the replacement building opened in January of 2021. The Dutch architectural firm Mecanoo was commissioned to do the main design, while Mayu Archi­tects handled the detailed design.

Chen Yu-lin reveals that the draft designs prepared by the two firms prior to the bidding coincidentally both adopted a facade design with each floor projecting out over the one below, using a strikingly simple approach to take account of the local climate. Thus despite the use of large glass facades on each floor to achieve maximum access to natural light, each floor still enjoys shade and shelter from the rain. 

The concept for the overall building design was inspired by the decorative latticed windows in old houses in Tainan. The aluminum slats around the crown of the building provide shade, and as the hours pass, the light that filters into the interior continuously changes. Even the choice of colors was guided by the amount of dust in downtown Tainan.

Mecanoo is skilled at designing areas for different uses, and they rationally considered the interior space of the library and how people use it. The open lines of sight within the building enable one to take in all the bookshelves at a glance. In this open space there is a tranquil literary atmosphere.

The main staircase in the Tainan Public Library is a vibrant red color. The architects got their inspiration from the dominant color in many temples in Tainan.

The work Gust of Wind by British artist Paul Cocksedge gives readers boundless scope to let their imaginations soar.

An open, flexible, transparent space

The three-story-high atrium features the work Gust of Wind, by the British artist Paul Cocksedge. White paper flies through the air, symbolizing the functions of a library and conveying the ideas of freedom of thought and the pleasure of reading printed books.

To broaden the public’s reading horizons, the library stages all kinds of book exhibitions and themed shows to draw attention to different types of reading material. There is also a special section with 16,000 old volumes in Japanese from the era of Japanese colonial rule. Not only is nitrogen pumped in to prevent insect pests, the collection has also been digitized in the hope of making it a major resource for research into that era.

There is flexibility in the use of the library’s interior space. On weekends and holidays, the first-floor lobby is transformed into a performance space for string music and dance. There is a branch of the Ubuntu bookstore on the third floor, creating the atmosphere of a department store inside the library. Director Hung Yu-chen, who has been working in libraries for over 30 years, argues that a library should be an organic place, and in this new age it should focus on “people” rather than “books.”

Libraries are important centers for the transmission of knowledge, and, as Hung says, public libraries are places where equal rights to knowledge can be enjoyed. Libraries should be more than just libraries—that’s the best way for them to respond to contemporary needs. 

The Tainan Public Library at night.