HAS uses frosted glass to “blur the boundaries” for The Glade bookstore

This bookstore in Chongqing was designed by architecture studio HAS Design and Research, with translucent glass covered with books.
Located in the densely populated city center of Chongqing, Jiadi Bookstore is a bookstore, restaurant and exhibition space, aiming to become the “spiritual and peaceful place” of this prosperous Chinese city.
HAS Design and Research (HAS) draws on the ink painting “Chongqing Mountain City” by the famous Chinese artist Wu Guanzhong to create a bookstore, trying to integrate urban life with rural customs.
“We began to imagine whether the city center could resemble the traditional Chongqing terrain and stilt houses in Wu Guanzhong’s paintings,” chief architect Jenchieh Hung told Dezeen.
Inside, charcoal-colored walls and smooth polished concrete floors create a calm atmosphere. Books are displayed behind the frosted glass panel of Douglas Fir Bookshelf, effectively “blurring the boundary between novel and reality.”
Hong hopes that this illusion element will give customers some respite from the surrounding “matte concrete structure”.
“In our design, we always consider nature, because human beings are part of nature, and nature has taught us everything, including spiritual atmosphere and sense of belonging,” Hong said.
“However, in the Glad Bookstore, visitors cannot interact with nature because they are inside the building. So we created an’artificial nature’ inside the building,” he continued.
“For example, the cedar bookshelf has a unique woody smell, just like a tree. The translucent frosted glass blurs the boundaries.”
The Glad Bookstore is located among many high-rise buildings, spread over two floors, covering an area of ​​1,000 square meters.
The lower level includes spaces for reading, resting and discussing books. A set of undulating stairs leads to the split-level first floor, as a “weishan city, forming an energetic and exploratory reading space”.
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The second floor provides a place for customers to drink coffee, order food from the bakery, drink in the bar, and eat in the restaurant. There is also an exhibition space here.
“We started to create multi-storey rooms of different heights, trying to connect Chongqing’s topography and stilt houses with our design space,” Hong explained.
He added: “The space form separating the first and second floors is the spatial form of a shed; the lower level is like the’grey space’ of a shed.”
Other bookstores in China include Harbook, a bookstore in Hangzhou, China designed by Alberto Caiola. The shop displays books on a huge geometric display case that intersects with steel arches and aims to attract young customers.
In Shanghai, local architecture studio Wutopia Lab used bookshelves made of perforated aluminum and quartz stone in a labyrinth of bookstores.
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