Formosa Boulevard Station
Interesting facts
- The station's main circular structure, 140 metres across, is described as the largest underground circular station in the world.
- According to Taiwanese sources the Dome of Light is assembled from 1,252 windows, each made of two to nine panels containing between 3 and 100 pieces of glass.
- At the centre of the dome stand two great columns, red for yang and blue for yin, symbolising opposing forces holding up the world.
- The fire sector of the dome depicts war and ends with a phoenix rising from the ashes, its tail streaming orange-red.
- Quagliata is said to have been unable to speak for an entire day after the dome was completed.
- Before opening, the station was provisionally named Dagangpu after the local district, and was renamed after the Formosa Incident, which took place at this very junction.
- In 2008 the speaker of the city council proposed reverting to the old name, arguing that Formosa Boulevard was too political.
- When the Red line opened in March 2008, trains ran straight through this station without stopping until the Orange line opened six months later.
- At night laser beams shoot from the tips of the four glass entrances and cross in the sky, symbolising the meeting of the two metro lines.
- The domed hall is offered as a wedding venue, and in 2012 a travel website ranked the station second among the world's most beautiful.
Why it is worth it
Below a busy road junction in the centre of Kaohsiung, the concourse of Formosa Boulevard station opens into a round hall roofed by a vast canopy of coloured glass. The Dome of Light, 30 metres in diameter and composed of thousands of individual glass panels, is often described as the largest glass work in the world, and it turns an underground interchange of the city's metro into one of the best-known public artworks in Taiwan.
The dome is the work of the Italian glass artist Narcissus Quagliata, who spent about four and a half years on the project. The glass was fabricated by the long-established Derix glass studios in Germany, with hand-made glass rondels from Murano set among the panels. Quagliata divided the composition into four great sectors devoted to water, earth, light and fire, through which human figures move in a cycle of birth, growth, glory, destruction and rebirth; he wanted travellers who glance up to find a place for dreaming in the middle of their journey. In 2015 the metro operator added a timed light-and-sound show that animates the glass at intervals. Above ground, the four glass entrance pavilions were designed by the Japanese architect Shin Takamatsu, who took prayer as his theme, so that their curved forms suggest hands pressed together.
The station opened on 14 September 2008 and is the only interchange between the Red and Orange lines of the Kaohsiung Metro, a three-level underground structure beneath the crossing of Zhongshan and Zhongzheng roads. Its name recalls the Formosa Incident of 10 December 1979, a pro-democracy demonstration in Kaohsiung whose suppression became a turning point in Taiwan's path towards democracy. Kaohsiung itself is the principal port city of southern Taiwan, and the streets around the station are home to the Liuhe Night Market and the city's traditional wedding-shop street.
Getting there
Formosa Boulevard is in Xinxing District in central Kaohsiung, served by both the Red line (R10) and the Orange line (O5) of the Kaohsiung Metro. Kaohsiung International Airport (KHH) is about 8 km away, and its terminal is on the same Red line.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Formosa Boulevard is a station of Kaohsiung Metro located in Sinsing District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. It is the interchange station between the Red line and the Orange line.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
22.63144, 120.30197per Wikidata