Tropical Rainforest Greenhouse, National Museum of Natural Science

Taichung's National Museum of Natural Science was built in successive phases. Its first section, with the Science Center and the Space Theater, opened on 1 January 1986; the Life Science Hall followed in August 1988, and the Human Cultures and Global Environment halls in August 1993. The fifth and final phase added a botanical garden, completed in 1999, with the great tropical rainforest greenhouse as its centrepiece.

The garden was designed to showcase Taiwan's lowland ecosystems, while the greenhouse gave the museum a space to present a tropical lowland rainforest and the ties between plants and human societies. The museum now describes it as the most prominent landmark of its botanical garden, in Taichung's North District.

The greenhouse is a glass envelope hung from a steel structure. It rises 31 metres above ground and extends 4.5 metres below it, with a diameter of 56 metres; the botanical garden rounds its height to about 40 metres. According to the museum's English page, the frame rests on six sets of columns tied by seven circular beams.

Inside are some 2,500 m² of display space. An ascending route climbs through the forest's successive layers, from ground flora to epiphytes, up to an observation deck on the eighth level. The system recreates the heat, humidity and heavy rainfall of the tropics, complete with artificial downpours and waterfalls. The air-conditioned basement houses an aquarium devoted to large Amazonian fish.

The museum states that around 500 species are planted in the greenhouse, although its English page gives a figure of 300 rainforest species. Plants are presented by their uses: timber trees, latex plants such as the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), fibre plants, food plants such as cacao, coffee and breadfruit, and ornamentals including flowering trees, orchids, bromeliads, ferns, palms and cauliflorous species. Among the large trees are the kapok (Ceiba pentandra) and the trumpet tree (Cecropia peltata).

The displays are arranged by theme: towering trees, people and plants, tropical flowering trees, a fern wall, a palm slope and lowland rainforest. The basement aquarium shows large Amazonian fish as well as piranhas, and the museum also mentions poison dart frogs.

The greenhouse stands in the museum's 4.5-hectare botanical garden, which holds more than 800 species across eight ecological zones devoted to Taiwan's flora, from the raised coral atoll and Orchid Island to the lowland forests of the north, centre and south. The climb to the observation deck gives a view down onto the canopy. The museum runs guided tours of the greenhouse at set times, and a visit combines easily with the museum's neighbouring exhibition halls.