Taipei 101 — Golden Hour Glasswork

Description

Taipei 101 — completed 2004, 508 metres, the world’s tallest building until 2010 — is designed in a form derived from the bamboo stalk: eight 8-floor segments (the number 8 being auspicious in Chinese culture), each slightly narrower than the one below, creating the distinctive tapering segmented profile. The tower’s exterior — a combination of green-tinted glass and steel space-frame elements with traditional Chinese ornamental motifs on the segment junction brackets — is most photographically compelling at golden hour when the warm light catches the glass surfaces at an angle that reveals the reflective quality of the facade without the overexposure that direct sun on glass creates. Da’an Forest Park — a large public park 2 kilometres southwest of the tower — provides a rare open foreground in the dense Taipei urban fabric from which the complete tower height is visible. This photograph was made at 5:30pm in October from the park’s central open area.