The Giant Screen Cinema
Opened 1997, digital 3D since the 2010s
Near the atrium a sign marks the projection booth of the museum's giant screen cinema, the room most visitors remember long after the exhibition halls have blurred together. Inside is a steeply raked auditorium facing a screen several storeys tall, built in the nineteen nineties for large format film and later converted to digital projection so that it can show science and nature documentaries in two and three dimensions. Programmes change through the year and usually include short films about space, the oceans, dinosaurs and Taiwan's own landscapes, most of them under an hour and suitable for children.
The experience is different from a multiplex. Because the screen fills your whole field of view, a flight over a canyon or a dive along a coral reef produces a physical sense of movement, and the sound system is tuned for rumble as much as for dialogue. The best seats are in the middle rows, high enough to look straight at the centre of the screen. Look at the panel on the wall outside the booth, which explains in Chinese how stereoscopic films are shot with two lenses and how the polarised glasses separate the two images for each eye.
The cinema was one of the first giant screen theatres in southern Taiwan and remains a major reason families make the trip. Tickets are sold separately from the exhibition halls and the popular afternoon shows sell out on weekends and holidays, so buy them when you arrive or online in advance. Films are usually in Mandarin, sometimes with English subtitles, but the imagery carries the story for visitors who do not understand the narration.
Did You Know? The photograph shows the sign for the projection booth in the atrium; the screen itself is inside the round drum you can see from outside the building.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.