CTBC Bank and Taipei 101 Souvenir Building Replicas

A very good friend, and you know who you are Sean, returned recently from a business trip to Taipei, Taiwan. As always when friends or family are traveling, I reminded him to keep an eye out for metal souvenir buildings. He retuned with not one, but two great building replicas from that city. One is a very detailed and well-made chrome metal souvenir of Taipei 101, which was designated the tallest building in the world in 2004 and remained until being surpassed with the opening of Burj Khalifa in Dubai in 2010. The building's design contains visual symbolism including sections of bamboo, pagoda, and an open flower. The structure also needed to be strong and flexible to withstand both high winds and earthquakes. The second is a large, metal presentation piece replica of the CTBC Bank complex. Formerly known as China Securities Investment Corp., Chinatrust Commercial Bank (CTBC Bank) was established in 1966 and renamed CTBC Bank Co., Ltd.  to align with our overseas expansion strategy.  The Chinatrust Commercial Bank headquarters building in Taipei, Taiwan is a complex, which includes a 30-story headquarters building, a 21-story commercial office building, a 10-story hotel, and a four-level retail center. The building façade system consists of extensive unitized curtain walls at the three towers, and multiple glass wall variations at the podium levels. The main tower has a series of vertical atriums carved into it creating “centers” or vertical courtyards composed of multistory, cable-supported glass that extends the entire height of the structure on two faces. The office towers feature a curtain wall that allows for maximum natural daylight through narrow floor plates, with floor-to-ceiling glass and automatic sensors.