Design Double: China's Beautiful Bookshops
04/06/2025
The bookshop as a personal space - as a cathedral, as a rural retreat, as a piece of history. TAO's mountaintop bookstore overlooks the Nujiang Grand Canyon, while their Weishan Chongzheng Academy Bookstore repurposes a 500-year old academy. X-Living's Tianjin Zhongshuge bookstore uses 400,000 custom-designed bricks to create a rising succession of spaces. "The design aims to blur the physical boundaries of the architecture," says principal Li Xiang, "suggesting that the boundaries of knowledge and cognition are vague, yet the spiritual core is clear and resolute."