History of the Construction of Digital Art Center, Taipei

Digital Art Center, Taipei is located at the site of the former Taipei City Shihlin District Fifth Meat Wholesale Market. This building was completed in 1983 and rented to Taipei Livestock Products Marketing Corp. in 1993. During this time period local communities were concerned with the usage of space and purpose of the building, and appealed on numerous occasions to the city government for restructuring. In 2004, coinciding with Taipei City Government’s Easy City project, it was decided as the site for the construction of the Digital Art Center, Taipei.

On December 7, 2004, Taipei City Market Administration handed control over to the Department of Cultural Affairs for planning and construction; we initiated planning and design in 2005, and completed the alteration of planning of land in urban areas as land for administrative authorities by the end of 2006. Construction began in March 2007 and was completed in January 2008; in May of the same year, the building passed acceptance inspection and outsourced management to a contractor. On June 28, 2009, Digital Art Center, Taipei was officially opened.

This center’s establishment is based on the principles of “R&D, experimentation, creation and incubation” of digital art, and provides an exchange platform for digital art creations and technologies. The intention is to accumulate digital art energy to form the Creative Cluster, and to encourage citizens to share the wonder of digital art, as well as to inspire creativity. The objective is to make Digital Art Center, Taipei the base for development of the emerging digital contents industry and culture.