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Taiwan Taoyuan International and Ever Rich Group senior officials salute the official reopening of Terminal 1 after a major investment |
TAIWAN. A major project to transform Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 1 has just been completed with a major contribution from Ever Rich Group.
The five-year investment programme aimed to upgrade the image of the airport and help market Taiwan to travellers. Ever Rich custom designed the terminal’s new-look stores and public facilities, which now include 14 differently themed lounges (see below). The reopening was marked with a special ceremony on 20 August.
Ever Rich Group said: “The airport is the window for marketing the beautiful natural environment and culture of Taiwan through artistic and cultural creativity. Ever Rich is not only the airport’s make-up artist, it is also the storyteller of Taiwanese culture, turning the airport into a museum for marketing Taiwan.”
As well as a strong retail offer, services include passenger service counters, mobile customer service personnel to assist passengers; a Hello Kitty baby room that provides wet napkins and nappies free; shopping trolleys and strollers for easier shopping and travel through the airport for families with young children; a stress-relief massage chair area, plus prayer rooms for the three main religions. The airport also regularly hosts art and cultural performances and exhibitions in the cultural gallery, giving passengers a chance to experience Taiwan’s traditional art and culture.
Central to the project was the building of waiting lounges with special Taiwanese themes and designs. The new decoration “overturns the cold impression that most visitors have of airport waiting lounges,” noted Ever Rich. The company spent three years searching for skilled craftspeople and visiting artists who represent the best of Taiwan’s art and culture. They were then commissioned to create 14 waiting lounges for Terminal 1, which are said to be “unique in the world”.
With the themes of “˜Beauty of Taiwan’ and “˜Glory of Taiwan’ the airport became the stage for artistic creativity, the company added.
The process of finding inspiration by the Ever Rich team and the artists and the discussions with local industry are also recorded in the book Taiwan’s Airport – 14 ways to enjoy 14 waiting lounges in Terminal 1 at Taoyuan International Airport, published in August this year by La Vie magazine. Taiwanese director Lin Ching-chieh, whose film The Most Distant Course was selected as the best film in International Critics Week at the Venice Film Festival in 2007, was also commissioned to make 14 micro documentaries for the 14 waiting lounges.
In addition, departing passengers can hear a special song dedicated to the country, titled Airport Song ~ On the Road which was commissioned by Ever Rich from Golden Melody Award winning lyricist Fang Wen-shan. Xu Jia-ying, finalist in this year’s Golden Melody Awards in the female singer category, has also released the song as a single, celebrating Taiwan’s nature and culture, religions, fine food and music.
Waiting lounge concepts
The Taiwan Faience Waiting Lounge evokes the crafts of “Koji pottery” and “cut-stick” that are important in the religious architecture of Taiwan, and often used in traditional folk fairy tales and stories about loyalty, filial piety, fidelity and justice. The lounge features vibrant colours and delicate craftsmanship, noted Ever Rich, created with the help of masters of these two arts over a six-month period. A highlight is the depiction of cherry blossoms, used to dress the walls of the lounge.
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The Blue and White Butterflies lounge (above) and the Aboriginal Arts lounge (below) |
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The Blue and White Butterflies Waiting Lounge was designed with butterfly frames made by laser carving. Artist Lily Yang drew the pictures by hand, with patterns of blue and white porcelain from ancient China transformed into classic indigo butterflies and tree peonies.
The theme of the Taiwanese Local Cuisine Waiting Lounge is the night market life of Taiwan. Here, ten of the most popular night market delicacies (as voted by Taiwanese) are featured in the artwork. 3D spray paintings of steamed dumplings, deep fried chicken breasts, Taiwanese-style fried chicken, pearl milk tea and other items adorn the lounge. Vivid scenes of vendors peddling their wares and the expressions of people tasting snacks are all depicted in the artwork, creating a lively and bustling Taiwan night market scene.
The Taiwan Aboriginal Arts Waiting Lounge depicts scenes such as flying fish jumping out of the ocean and the “˜Hair Dance’ performed by the women of the Tao people in Taiwan to symbolise safe returns from trips and plentiful fish harvests. The abstract lines depicting mountains and crested serpent eagles within the work are said to symbolise the diversity and richness of Taiwan aboriginal culture, allowing travellers in the lounge to see and feel the deeper facets of Taiwan culture and art.
The Taiwan Alpine Waiting Lounge is devoted to the mountain peaks of the country: there are 268 peaks that are over 3,000m high, giving Taiwan one of the highest mountain peak densities in the world. Ever Rich invited Prof. Li Zong-Ren, the curator of the Art Museum at the National Taiwan University of Arts and an expert in both Chinese ink painting and Western oil painting techniques, to create artwork for the lounge based on the theme of the Hundred Peaks in Taiwan. The aim was to showcase Yushan, the tallest of the Hundred Peaks and the peak most representative of the Taiwan spirit, to travellers in the lounge. Prof. Li took recycled scrap glass provided by the Spring Pool Glass Industrial Co. and re-processed it into brightly coloured glass, and pasted it into the work to create the mountainous landscape.
The Taiwan Tea Waiting Lounge is a celebration of Taiwan’s 200-year-long heritage in tea-making. The island produces over one quarter of the world’s Oolong tea leaves, which is a popular premium gift. The focal points of this work are the women picking tea and the tea terraces created by Xu Ming-Cheng with dyed bamboo weaves. Yuan Zhen’s pagoda poem Tea, written in cursive script by the famous calligraphy artist Ms. Zhou Yue-Yun, makes up the rest of the work. The bamboo weave figures and scenery show the refined tastes of tea culture, and the calligraphy gives an insight into the culture of the Taiwan tea industry.
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Lounges are also dedicated to Taiwanese tea (above) and opera (below) |
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The Taiwanese Opera Waiting Lounge was designed by calligraphy master Dong Yang-Zi and the contemporary designer Xiao Qing-Yang, with the aim to integrate traditional Taiwan culture into contemporary design and also to give traditional elements a new interpretation.
The MIT Bike Waiting Lounge was a collaboration with bicycle manufacturer Pacific Cycles Inc. to turn the curved walls of the lounge into a world map. Outlines depicting the five continents and seven oceans adorn the walls, and Taiwan lies at the centre of this bicycle world map. Chains, wheels, gears, and other bicycle parts decorate the work, symbolising the quality of bicycles made in Taiwan. Ever Rich Duty Free Shop has also designed an exhibition area in the lounge to showcase the innovative designs of MIT bicycles and market the healthy concept of a green, carbon-free lifestyle.
Taiwan Orchid Waiting Lounge: Taiwanese flower farmers are the source of over 50% of the moth orchid seeds on the global orchid market. Taiwan exports over 8 million orchids a year, making it the biggest orchid exporter in the world, and it is said to have the leading cultivation techniques for moth orchid seedlings anywhere. Ever Rich invited a local paper cutting artist to create a large-sized cut paper artwork that has a high degree of difficulty to showcase moth orchids in the lounge. The tens of thousands of white paper orchids hanging in the lounge are said to “transform the cool atmosphere of the lounge into a warm and fragrant feeling with soft colours and lighting”.
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The Taiwan Faience lounge (above) and the High-Tech lounge (below) |
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To create the LED Waiting Lounge Ever Rich invited the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition production team to create artwork for the lounge using flowers that are brimming with life as the theme. The team used over a thousand PET bottles made from recycled plastic, and embedded LED lights within them to warm up the cool colour tones of the airport with dazzling lighting changes along with the LED lights. The team also set up 3D interactive touch-screen devices, and when travellers touch the screens the LEDs light up like a blooming flower.
Taiwan Fruit Waiting Lounge: Taiwan has plentiful fruit harvests all year round, earning Taiwan the name “˜The Kingdom of Fruit’. Ever Rich invited Hung Yi, a famous modern Taiwanese artist and the son of a fruit merchant, to create the artwork for this lounge. Hung first drew vivid outlines of images and then used diverse and saturated colours to create life-like pictures of various fruits. There are oranges that are said to bring prosperity and good fortune; dragon fruit that symbolise dragons flying in the sky; bananas, the favourite food of monkeys and much more.
The Glory of High-tech Waiting Lounge is a technology showcase inspired by Taiwan’s high-tech industry. This giant art installation is composed of thousands of recycled motherboards, and the finished product weights one metric ton. The first layer of the work is the silhouette of Taiwan placed on top of the second layer, the round shape of the earth. The third layer of the work forms the words “˜MADE IN TAIWAN’, and there are LED lights installed on the letters, symbolizing the strength of Taiwan’s high-tech industry.
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The bright colours of Taiwan’s textile industry are celebrated here |
The Glamorous Textile Art Waiting Lounge: Ever Rich commissioned Lynch Kuo, who won the Best New Designer Award at the 2002 Taiwan Fashion Design Awards held by the Taiwan Textile Federation, to create the artwork for this lounge. He used aboriginal, cotton print, Hakka blue dye and other unique patterns as well as the bright colours of Taiwan textiles and the textures of functional textiles to create a collage full of contrasts. Kuo also used metal structures at the top and bottom to secure the work in place and enhance the stretch effect of the fabric, transforming the work from a flat surface into a 3D cloth installation.
The Glory of Sports Waiting Lounge follows the theme of never giving up when facing challenges. The goal was to create a themed lounge for the world to see the best of Taiwan’s athletes. The work emulates the circular curved shape of gymnasiums. The movie poster artist Yan Zhen-Fa used the art techniques seen in old movie posters to recreate the classic moments of top athletes one brushstroke at a time.
In completing this project, Ever Rich hailed the public-private partnership that underpinned the investment in T1.
It said the building of 109 new locations had exceeded the stipulated plans for its investment during the four years since it has been operating the airport terminals.
The company noted: “The investment in the 14 waiting lounges in Terminal 1, including engineering and equipment costs, was over NT$140 million (US$5 million), reaching the objective of the Act for the Promotion of Private Participation in Infrastructure, with zero investment and subsidy from the government, achieving a win-win-win situation for government, enterprise and passengers.”
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This lounge is dedicated to Taiwan’s flourishing market in fruit making |
