In Shanghai, there is a huge new library, full of symbols

Designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects (SHL), the Shanghai Library East has just been inaugurated in the Chinese metropolis, which considers it as a gift to its inhabitants, a place where they can find themselves, so much so as to be defined by Chris Hardie, design director of SHL, as a “very personal third space”.

The large Shanghai Library East – with flexible, modular, and open spaces, which also include a theater and an exhibition space – aims to become a meeting point between art, literature, and technology. Therefore, it appears as a contemporary library, smart and hybrid, in which to approach different kinds of events with the same attention and curiosity with which you are preparing to read a book.

The atrium is characterized by warm colors of natural materials, such as bamboo and oak. This space, which acts as a large central square, is overlapped by the other floors of the building, wedged one on the other asymmetrically and inspired by Taihu stones, porous limestones formed around the large lake Dongting, near Suzhou, and scattered in Chinese gardens according to the principles of Taoism.

Very often objects of drawings, paintings, and woodcuts, these rocks play an important role in traditional Chinese culture. They are in fact a source of contemplation and meditation, but also collectible elements and symbols of a certain social status. They are also considered a source of inspiration for creative intelligence, around which to find themselves and confront each other. Their shape, in fact, stimulates imagination, being unpredictable and curious, characterized by holes created by water’s and weather’s erosion.

The changeability and unpredictability of the interior of the library are also repeated outside, through horizontal glasses with various gradations of transparency. These panels – engraved with fifteen different patterns inspired by the veins of marble – allow natural light to enter the building, illuminating the space and symbolically the mind. At the same time, from the inside, you can get lost in the largest green space in the city: Century Park.

The Shanghai Library East can also be seen as a space created by artists for artists: in fact, were involved in the design path Xu Bing, Gu Wenda, Shen Fan, Zheng Chongbin, Emily Floyd, Ni Youyu, Mia Liu, Plummer & Smith, Simon Ma, and Yang Zhenzhong, who designed some site-specific installations.

“Our creative approach to library design is based on the idea that these cultural institutions are inclusive and deeply embedded in their context,” concluded Elif Tinaztepe, SHL’s partner and project manager.