🇹🇼Taiwan·Seen from outside

Taishin International Bank Tower (台新金控大樓)

Taipei (Daan District)

Sources checked November 2026

“A glass tower whose façade of circular arcs follows the curve of Renai Circle.”

Year: 2005
Architect: I. M. Pei
Type: 25-storey office tower
Access: Office building of a financial group, on the edge of Renai Circle

At the junction of Renai and Dunhua South roads, the 123 m Taishin International Bank Tower wraps around a segment of Renai Circle. Designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, with Haigo Shen & Associates as architect of record, and completed in 2005, it presents the city with a glass façade made of overlapping circular arcs.

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In depth ≈ 1 min read

History

The tower stands on the site of the former God of Wealth Hotel (財神酒店), a five-star hotel that closed in 1982 and stood empty for twenty years. The companies that bought the site at auction in 1997 asked Pei's firm, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, to plan a hotel topped by luxury housing; the City of Taipei opposed it, since it intended Renai Circle for finance and did not want private housing there.

In 2002 Taishin Bank bought the land to build its headquarters, and what remained of the hotel was demolished the same year. The new building was completed in 2005.

Architecture

The tower has 25 storeys and stands 123 m high. Pei Cobb Freed & Partners handled the design; Haigo Shen & Associates is the architect of record. The design is the work of an architect who had been with the firm for more than forty years.

The plan combines arcs taken from seven overlapping circles. These arcs form a glass façade that bends with Renai Circle; the architect compared it to an open book whose two edges meet, with lines as fluid as a drop of water or a cloud.

For the night, the lighting designer Fisher Marantz Stone planned about 500 LED fixtures, set in light boxes along the façade in seven horizontal rows; programmable colours are added to the white light.