Nanjing, China
“Restoration doesn’t mean to go back to the past, but about creating the future,” said Cui Kai, Chief Architect of China Architecture Design & Research Group and lead design architect of this bookstore.
“The visible interventions for ‘Silo A’ make it a pioneer to spread a kind of expectation that resonates with people, or even conciliates and heals their spirit.
Designed by Kai and his team, Librairie Avant-Garde is more than just a bookshop, it’s a literary destination.
The sprawling underground bunker turned bookstore welcomes visitors to linger over their books, offering exhibitions of local art and even a cafe, besides their eclectic book collection.
Social science and humanities feature highly on their list of books and students from the neighboring university often stops by this pseudo library for research materials.
Before Librairie Avant-Garde owner Qian Xiaohua, 52, obtained the 4,000-square-meter underground space beneath Wutaishan Stadium in Nanjing in 1999, it was a government car park and, earlier, a bomb shelter.
“We chose this car park because it borders Nanjing University—it has become the second library for university students”, says Xiaohua.
“There is an old saying in Chinese—turn something rotten into a miracle.”
The project is composed of 10 towering cylindrical grey cement silos are set upright here alone.
Their absolutely geometrical shapes stand out, which look like a series of big exclamation points, waiting for some moment in space-time when fresh new soul was to be injected again.
The 10 silos have 10 different functions each dedicated to forms of love and beauty: the art silo, the picture book silo, the traveling and living silo, the ancient book silo, the literature silo, the humanities and social sciences silo, the poetry silo, and the cashier silo.
Ten complete circular silos, tunnels to the dreamland, pointing straight up into the sky, The Literal Silo— plump and paralyzed rising.
The sense of infinite extension of the circular perspective coincides with the connotation that “books” would lead people to unlimited spiritual space.
Therefore, the transition from material space to spiritual space happens.
There are actually ten dark zones between the ten silos. As the entrance of the white dreamlands, the architects applied the “mirror” texture.
Kai’s decor is striking, and books are at the forefront even here, with furniture made from old books.
Instead of a shelf for best-selling books, visitors are welcomed by a replica of Rodin’s “The Thinker” sculpture.
The cashier counter is built from thousands of old books.
The main hall of the bookstore serves as a forum for talks and concerts.
It also houses a homey coffee shop, a permanent exhibition space for beautiful book designs and a retail area for creative works by Nanjingers.
Store owner Qian’s favorite artworks hang from the ceiling.
Pillars in the store are etched with famous verses and poems.
“You walk up the slope that still retains its yellow traffic stripes on the ground between two rows of shelves,” says Qian, as though he’d just opened the shop a week ago.
“After that, look back and you’ll see a big shining cross that shines upon you, as well as many others that came here before you.”
Project: Librairie Avant-Garde
Architects: China Architecture Design & Research Group
Design Team: Kai Cui, Fei Guan, Yuanzheng Dong, and Deling Wang
Interiors Team: Wenwen Han and Aiai Zhang
Landscape Architects: Unlimited Landscape studio, China Urban Construction Design & Research Institute
Client: Qian Xiaohua, Librairie Avant-Garde
Photographers: Gen Ben Tang
