BAMBOO THEATER
Cheng Tsung Feng Design Studio
ARCHITECTS
Cheng Tsung Feng Design Studio
PHOTOGRAPHS
Fixer Photographic Studio
AREA
80 m²
YEAR
2025
LOCATION
Lugu, Taiwan
CATEGORY
Pavilion
English description provided by the architects.
Cheng Tsung FENG's artistic practice has long been intertwined with endangered traditions, vanishing techniques, and fading cultural memories.
Among them, the traditional bamboo theatre — once a vital part of temple festivals and folk celebrations across Taiwan — holds a special resonance.
Built entirely with bamboo scaffolding, these temporary performance stages embodied the ingenuity of communities, combining practicality with ritual and festivity.
Today, however, such theaters have nearly disappeared, replaced by modern equipment and standardized structures.
In his work Bamboo Theatre, created in Shima Park at Xiaobantian, Nantou, FENG reimagines this vanishing cultural symbol through the lens of contemporary stagecraft, employing bamboo, wood, metal, ropes, and tape — materials familiar to today's theatre-making.
The stage installation takes shape from an arrangement of bamboo poles of varying lengths.
Beginning at the central rear of the stage, the poles intersect and fan outward in a radiant semicircle, forming a dynamic and open backdrop.
Within this overlapping framework, FENG wove together both thick and slender bamboo poles, binding them with net-like ropes.
This construction simultaneously echoes the structural logic of traditional bamboo scaffolding while embracing the aesthetics and materials of modern stage practice.
The woven density of the background does not merely stabilize the form; it also creates a visual texture that enhances the drama of performances staged upon it.
At the front edge of the platform, bamboo poles are neatly aligned, while strips of white tape decorate the ground, extending the radiating geometry of the stage into its surroundings.
These details connect the work both to its traditional roots and to a contemporary vocabulary of minimal, striking design.
Beyond its symbolic meaning, the Bamboo Theater is a functioning public space.
It provides a venue for community performances and festive events, while also inviting passersby to pause, rest, and enjoy the shade.
In doing so, FENG bridges the gap between past and present, allowing an almost-lost tradition to continue its life in new forms—at once a memorial, a gathering place, and a living stage for stories yet to come.