Stained glass window and reading room with wooden seats
Stained glass window and reading room with wooden seats

Bamboo and brick used for a library in China. A continuous changing of fairy tale scenarios

Zhongshuge Bookstore opens in Chengdu, a historical and cultural city which has been described in various poems since 1200. So Studio X+Living wanted to express the atmosphere of the stories in the library project, creating spaces that seem to have emerged from a fairy tale

More than 1200 years ago, the great poet Du Fu created a vivid memory of Chengdu with his poem and you could hear these stories in the tea houses along the streets while you savoured the authentic famous Sichuan tea. Thus, the street culture of Chengdu has become a unique landscape, with its special cultural atmosphere and its entertaining

The bookcase and the large curved glass window

Zhongshuge Bookstore's project is located in the Yintai center in Chengdu Tianfu Avenue, inside the shopping center. After the curtain wall, a space full of bamboo shaped book shelves can be seen. The wall is in keeping with the Zhongshuge bookcase concept, which aims to make visitors feel at home in a familiar space even if they are coming there for the first time. A series of small tables can be seen on the floor that look like "bamboo shoots" are used as reading areas in this space

The bookcase and the large curved glass window

As you walk through the "bamboo forest" you will get to the children's area, a heavenly world in the jungle. On the side walls, it looks like houses, windmills and adorable pandas are hiding behind the bamboo forest. The large mushrooms are scattered across the windows of the seafront, protecting the children from being seen. A mirror on the ceiling completes this area

The bookcase and the large curved glass window

The five-metre-high red brick wall is the most distinctive place in the library. A footpath sometimes runs over the space and occasionally passes through the door. There are seats and benches next to the French window. At the end of the small areas, we arrive at the conference room. The soft lines form scattered stairs with different levels for walking or sitting, a mirror in the mirrored ceiling can also be found here

The bookcase and the large curved glass window

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