A contemporary bookstore in Chinas heart- Hangzhou, fitted out like an art gallery, is designed to tear apart the younger generation from a life with phones by taking us back to reading books in the real world by using a fun experience. Using strong bold colours and exciting shapes tears the younger generation away from phones to really live in the moment and explore the library to find a book. Although it doesn’t fulfil the traditional criteria of a bookstore, it has everything it needs to become one; books and a place to read them, with additional benefits such as contemporary art.
Although the space is incredibly beautiful on the images, the article itself doesn’t in my opinion do it any favours as the author goes into way too much detail about describing the space rather than the plain facts. For example this quote “For starters, it’s spacious: the open-plan 600 sq-m giant..” (Frameweb, 2018) is describing the huge space and showing the plain facts. However throughout, the materials used aren’t properly explained and the author instead goes into paragraphs of detail about what the space can be used for. More content explaining the space itself, materials, colours and certain rooms own uses would be more beneficial to get a real feel of the space, rather than having to use the images alone. I feel as though the author is trying to give a lot of background information about the space rather than reflecting on the space itself- suggesting the author has not been to the bookstore and has instead found pictures and facts online.
Overall I feel the article does give a good insight into the bookstores functional uses, how the space was built and with what purpose, although in my opinion the author has failed to describe the space and sell it to it’s full potential. Luckily the images alone do the bookstore enough justice.
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