Photo: Chen Zhongqiu
Photo: Chen Zhongqiu
Hangzhou Discovery
By Fang Jingyi
The Hangzhou Xinhua Bookstore Jiefang Rd branch reopened on Jan 16, 2024, after a 410-day renovation.
The predecessor of the bookstore was the Zhejiang branch of the Commercial Press, founded during the 1930s and 1940s. After a merger in 1954, it became Xinhua Bookstore, the only comprehensive large bookstore at the time, and had been running for nearly 70 years before the renovation.
The renovated Xinhua Bookstore features a specially made blue-brick facade, while preserving elements of the old building's Republic of China-era design. Its interior design focuses on integrating and refining the internal spatial structure, incorporating Hangzhou's regional characteristics with the 'Poetry Stairs' that connect the shore's four stores with books and cultural signs displayed along the stairs.
Covering 3,800 square meters, the bookstore boasts nearly 50,000 varieties of books, with a wide range from classics and teaching materials to original English editions, but it is more a space for cultural experiences, leisure, and socializing than a place for selling books but also. Multiple cultural exhibitions are set up in the store, Yuelan Tree, the '24-Hour' reading room on the first floor, has also been reinstated, where browsing books late at night was a delightful memory for many book enthusiasts.
Another reading space on the fourth floor is an open-air garden to enjoy the pleasure of reading outdoors. This floor is also the paradise for children with a comprehensive collection of children's books and picture books, the parent-child reading areas and children's cultural activity zones, where children's activities will be held every week.
In the store, you may find many popular cultural and creative brands favored by young audience, as well as diverse cultural spaces such as the 'Elegant Tea and Book Room,' 'Urban Island Painting Studio,' 'Music Space,' and 'Harry Potter Magic Market' on the second floor, which has turned the bookstore into an idea place to rendezvous.
Location: # 225-227, Jiefang Rd, Shangcheng district