Mirrored Illusion Creates Never-Ending ‘Palace’ of Books Inside Beautiful New Bookstore

 

An incredible new bookstore uses gleaming black-tiled floors and mirrored ceilings to transform the location into a ‘never-ending’ palace of books.

The magical Dujiangyan Zhongshuge bookstore, in southwest China’s Sichuan province, is home to over 80,000 volumes in more than 20,000 genres.

The books stored inside the stunning store stretch from floor to ceiling—with mirrored ceilings creating the illusion that the room stretches on infinitely.

All of the books are within easy reach of customers, who can ascend the bookstore’s spiral staircase and pass under towering 50-foot archways lined with yet more books, to get to the items they’d like.

Laid out over two stories, and filling an area of almost 1,000 square metres, the bookstore was designed by Li Xiang, founder of Chinese architecture firm X+Living.

Li said her latest project was inspired by the ancient city of Dujiangyan in which the bookstore is built.

She said, “Using the technique of architecture, the designer moves the magnificent spirit of mountains and rivers into the indoor space. We present readers with their own elegant and powerful artistic landscape… a visual feast.”

That vision seems to be working, with Li explaining that on entering the store, “Many people associate the space with a magical world, with the magic feeling coming from the structure of the bookshelves, and the reflection of the mirrored ceiling.”