According to a recent study by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publishing, the Chinese read, on average, 8 books (paper and/or digital) per year. It’s really not much and it contradicts the affluence that reigns in the places of the capital “where we read”. Admittedly, the passion for reading, at the end of the Cultural Revolution, did not resist the attraction of new modes of entertainment. Queues in front of bookstores are a distant memory. But it is true that by gaining surface area and reviewing their concepts, they have once again become poles of attraction.
The paper book resists!
In the digital age, of the dematerialization of the book, China provides proof that libraries and bookstores have not said their last word. The world of reading has serious allies: these are the offices of architects who have mastered the art of the prowess of deconstructing traditional patterns. We come to see, admire their creations everywhere in China (Changqing, Yangsu, Guiyang…) In Beijing, we go to a French department store!
Zongshuge Lafayette
This bookstore chain is famous for the lavish settings in which it distributes its book collections. Here, on 1100 m2, the designer X+Living makes us evolve in a traditional Chinese garden. We go through moon gates, so many tunnels through forests of books (some 60,000) of all colors. Mirrors enlarge the different spaces and disrupt the real-unreal perception. The tea-coffee area and the children’s kingdom emerge among the bamboos… The experience is fascinating, really.
Wangfujing Xinhua
It is in the equivalent of the 5th Avenue or the Champs-Elysée that Xinhua (New China) has taken up residence. It is China’s largest bookstore chain, the only nationwide distribution channel for books and magazines. The collections include different fields such as politics, economics, sciences, arts… and of course literature, reaching a total of 200,000 books. A large space is devoted to digital material.
Foreign Languages Bookstore
Still in the hectic Wangfujing Avenue, this bookstore is, in Beijing, the best stocked space in this area. Foreign tourists flock there because they can find the books they want at a lower price. The themes of the collections are of course very varied, independently of literature.
Sanlian Taofen Bookstore
After Beijing’s bookstores close down one after another under the brunt of e-book services, Sanlian Taofen Bookstore is determined to light up the night for booklovers by opening its doors to customers 24/7 starting Apr. 18, 2014.
The 18-year-old bookstore, completely tucked into the eastern corner of the National Arts Museum of China, was named after the country’s famous cultural figure Zou Taofen (1895-1944), founder of Sanlian Bookstore.
