Part landscape, part architecture, the 1.51 million-square-foot National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts tucks a collection of performance halls beneath a 35-acre artificial terrain that rolls like hills. Floating at one end of a park that had been a military base, the $366 million complex—the largest performing-arts center under one roof—seems to ooze from below its immense lid, blurring the boundaries between indoors and out, solid and void. The Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo created an undulating middle realm between roof and ground that provides access to four indoor auditoria while remaining open to breezes and views of the park on all sides. Inspired by the large banyan trees that grow on the site and provide welcome shade, with their long, arching branches, the architects enveloped this interstitial space in a curving steel canopy that slides down to wrap around the elliptically shaped theaters. Called Banyan Plaza, it provides a cool retreat from the subtropical sun and frequent rains—a place where anyone can come to do tai chi in the morning, jog in the afternoon, or watch films projected on its underside in the evening.