Gold Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design · 2025
Bishan Bookstore
by Yunhai Zhao
- A' Design Award 2025 Gold Winner in Cultural Heritage and Culture Industry Design
- Awarded April 15, 2025
- CLIENT: Yunhai Zhao
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 77,545
- Verification code FAA220BF9D · Verify this award
About Bishan Bookstore
Bishan is a bookstore set inside a former ancestral hall in Bishan Village, Yi County, Anhui. The hall, a Wang family shrine, was built more than 230 years ago during the Qing Dynasty. The project covers 420 square meters and adapts a protected historic building to present-day cultural use. Natural materials such as wood, bamboo and stone shape the interior, while the bookcase wall is finished in white rammed earth. Cement board supports the bookcase wall and limits damage caused by ground moisture. The form of the bookcase wall recalls painted screens and frames a central reading area.
Zhao Yunhai's Bishan Bookstore represents an exemplary achievement in cultural heritage adaptive reuse, demonstrating how traditional architectural forms may be thoughtfully transformed to serve contemporary cultural programming while preserving the essential character and material authenticity of historic structures. The design engages with centuries-old building traditions through its retention and celebration of original timber construction systems, where the intricate joinery of bracket sets, the rhythmic arrangement of exposed rafters, and the distinctive profile of ceramic tile roofing speak to sophisticated craft knowledge accumulated across generations of practice. The spatial organization follows classical courtyard principles wherein the central open void functions simultaneously as light well, circulation nexus, and contemplative pause, creating that particular quality of interiority and openness characteristic of traditional residential and scholarly compounds. One observes exceptional sensitivity in the chromatic restraint exercised throughout: the natural material palette of aged timber in its spectrum from pale straw through rich amber, the silvered grey of worn stone pavements, and the neutral rendered walls creates a harmonious backdrop that allows the colorful spines of collected volumes to provide measured chromatic vitality without overwhelming the architectural atmosphere. The curatorial decision to incorporate photographic portraits of historical literary figures establishes intellectual genealogy and positions the contemporary bookstore within extended traditions of scholarly culture, suggesting that readers who enter this space join an ongoing conversation across time. The preservation of original structural elements including the magnificent carved timber components and stone column bases demonstrates commitment to heritage conservation principles while the integration of functional bookselling infrastructure achieves that delicate balance between museum-quality preservation and vital contemporary use. Viewers might contemplate how such spaces embody cultural continuity, inviting reflection on the relationship between physical environment and intellectual life, and how architecture itself may serve as repository of collective memory and aspiration toward knowledge.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The Bishan Bookstore needs to have a clear business strategy and plan, which all need to be adapted to the changing consumption and needs of the times and to think with the times. If the market-oriented development of the space is hampered by over-protection, Bishan bookstore will become an exhibit for ornamental purposes only, and its value as a cultural container will be lost.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- This project covers an area of 420 square meters.
- Tags
- Huizhou culture, ancestral hall, traditional architecture, traditional crafts, bookstore
- Production Technology
- In addition to the patio, which faces nature, the interior also speaks the language of nature. Natural materials such as wood, bamboo, and stone are used to structure the interior itself. These materials not only have a natural beauty but also resonate with the environment. However, the bookcase wall uses a new material, white rammed earth material, which is used for the exterior wall material of the building.
- Design Challenge
- When Librairie Avant Garde listed the realistic problems to us one by one, we felt that the difficulty of this project was not just to solve these operational challenges,but how a heritage-protected building could find a balance between history and modernity, preserving the original characteristics of this family shrine while enabling it to adapt to the needs of modern society.
- Project Duration
- Project Address: Bishan Village, Yi County,Anhui
Completion date: December 2024 - Operation Flow
- First of all, the transformation of the bookcase is the core of the whole design, in order to reduce the damage to the bookcase caused by the humidity on the ground, the cement board is used to build the bookcase wall, and the bookcase is partially embedded. The form of the whole bookcase wall is inspired by the screen in Chinese painting, and the center area wrapped by three screens is the area for the daily activities of the literati. The screened bookcase recedes backward, drawing the viewer's eye toward the center of the picture.
- Research
- In this small village, there is a Wang family shrine Qitai Hall, built in the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, more than 230 years ago. And this small ancestral hall, which has experienced countless hours of history, was injected with new blood in 2014 Librairie Avant Garde the eighth branch of Nanjing Librairie Avant Garde and the first bookstore in the countryside.
- Inspiration
- There is a Wang family shrine Qitai Hall, built in the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, more than 230 years ago. Librairie Avant Garde has been committed to rooting into the countryside, not for commercial needs, but for the dissemination of culture, so that those areas where it is most difficult to be able to read books have a cultural utopia gathered for the love of reading and books.
- Image Credits
- Image #1:Photographer YunHai Zhao,Designer,2025.
Image #2:Photographer YunHai Zhao,Designer,2025.
Image #3:Photographer YunHai Zhao,Designer,2025.
Image #4:Photographer YunHai Zhao,Designer,2025.
Image #5:Photographer YunHai Zhao,Designer,2025. - Patents
- Copyrights belong to Yunhai Zhao
Colors of Bishan Bookstore
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Heritage-Inspired Commercial Interior Design Services
We transform commercial spaces by harmonizing cultural heritage with contemporary functionality, creating environments that honor tradition while serving modern business needs. Our portfolio spans restaurants, hotels, retail, and cultural spaces across China and Singapore.
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