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Mirrored planes of black glass multiply labyrinthine staircases into an Escheresque infinity within Li Xiang's Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore, where the central axis commands immediate attention…
Mirrored infinite book stacks rise from honeyed terrazzo flooring in an architectural interior where the structural vocabulary of shelving dissolves boundaries between ground plane and ceiling vault…
Warm honey-toned timber constructs an ascending monumentality within Li Xiang's Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore, where the composition establishes a rigorous bilateral symmetry along a central…
Li Xiang's Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore presents a breathtaking spatial composition wherein undulating honey-toned wood shelving systems articulate an environment of organic rhythm and fluid…
Honeyed timber sweeps establish vertical rhythm through this commercial interior, where curved shelving forms rise from polished obsidian flooring that reflects the composition in liquid perfection…

Platinum Interior · 2020

Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore

by Xiang Li

  • Platinum A' Design Award 2020 in Interior
  • CLIENT: X+Living
  • Estimated Number of Design Views: 752,701
  • Verification code F6196FCE67 · Verify this award
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About Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore

Incorporating the splendid landscape of Chongqing in the bookstore, the designer has created a space where the visitors may feel like in the charming Chongqing while reading. There are five types of reading area in total, each of which is like a wonderland with distinctive features. Chongqing Zhongshuge bookstore has provided the consumers with a more fancy experience that they are not able to gain through the online shopping.

About the Platinum A' Design Award

Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore is a Platinum A' Design Award winner, an extremely prestigious recognition granted to truly exceptional, elegant, and magnificent designs. Platinum winners are marvels of creation, testaments to the limits of intellectual creativity, and demonstrate the unmatched professionalism and genius of their designers. These designs are expected to be the most renowned works that define the aesthetics of an era, contribute to the well-being of society, and push the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore exhibits a transcendent level of excellence and unequivocally makes the world a better place with its advantageous and worthwhile characteristics. Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore is a Platinum A' Design Award-winning work that triggers desires, inspires, excites, delights, and sparks great joy.

Press Kit

Unique Properties
Designer utilized the mirror ceiling in order to make the space seem more spacious. The visually stunning bookstore enables the readers to feel the magnificence of the cityscape in a closed and confined space, which is definitely a fantastic real-life experience that the internet simply could not offer. Designer also well-integrated the function and aesthetics in the Escher-like space, the ladder hall, by making the bookshelf into a ladder-like one where the readers could step on or down.
Dimensions & Packaging
The floor area of this project is 1300 sqm.
Tags
bookstore, chongqing, china, civic interiors, library, cultural
Production Technology
Chongqing Zhongshuge greets visitors with a simple glass facade covered with text. Once inside, scattered lampshade-shaped bookshelves are found throughout the dark brown lobby. On the other corner of the lobby is the kids reading room, where the bookshelves are built colorful with drawn landscape, buildings and transportation in Chongqing. Further down the corridor and the kids reading room is the main study, a ladder hall where the stair double as bookshelves and the mirrored ceiling overhead doubles the size of the already astonishing room.
Design Challenge
It is a great challenge to present the landscape of a city in a limited space, especially when it is a mountainous city. By utilizing the concept of ladder, the designer was able to show the complex geomorphic environment whereas high space utilization is hard to meet.
Research
Zhongshuge has always strived to become a cultural landmark in the city where it locates. Therefore, designer try to find an element which can be abstracted from the culture of the city and strike a chord among the public.
Inspiration
As one of the largest inland city of mountains and rivers in the world, Chongqing is a city full of surprises and wonderful and charming corners. Since ancient times, its landscape and numerous historical sites have attracted many ancient writers and calligraphers. Until today, Chongqing is still a city of attraction to everyone. Designer intended to present the splendid landscape of Chongqing in the bookstore so that the visitors may feel like in the charming city while reading.
Project Duration
The project is finished in January 2019 in Chongqing, China.
Operation Flow
The Chongqing Zhongshuge greets visitors with a simple glass facade covered with text. The bookshelves reflect on the ground and form a tunnel of books that beckons visitors to follow it deeper into the space and knowledge. It is hoped that visitors to the bookstore can not only read good and new books, but also meet friends of the same interests.
Patents
Copyrights belong to Shao Feng, 2019.
Image Credits
Image#1: Photographer Shao Feng, Chongqing Zhongshuge, 2019.
Image#2: Photographer Shao Feng, Chongqing Zhongshuge, 2019.
Image#3: Photographer Shao Feng, Chongqing Zhongshuge, 2019.
Image#4: Photographer Shao Feng, Chongqing Zhongshuge, 2019.
Image#5: Photographer Shao Feng, Chongqing Zhongshuge, 2019.

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