Toyou Bookstore, Shanghai Shop Interior, Chinese Commercial Design Project, Architecture Photos
Toyou Bookstore in Shanghai
18 Jun 2021
Toyou Bookstore
Architects: Wutopia Lab
Location: Shanghai, China

The most mysterious bookstore in Shanghai ? Toyou

Yu Ting hides two mountains in Jean Nouvel’s newly designed building

Wutopia Lab’s Toyou Bookstoredesigned for the CIFI Group opened to the public on May 1, 2021, and in just three weeks, this new bookstore became the No.1 in the ranking bookstore and audio-visual stores in Huangpu District by Popular Review. It has become a popular bookstore in this popular building, The Roof designed by Jean Nouvel.

The visible mountain and the invisible mountain
Toyou Bookstore got its name from Big You Mountain and Little You Mountain. “Er” in Chinese indicates the number “two”. The two mountains are the site where scholars preserved books from burning by Qin Shi Huang. It is a symbol of the continuity of Chinese culture in the future. Taking the two mountains as the theme of my design, I decided to spatialize the two abstract and symbolic mountains into the bookstore.

Er You’s backstory

The name of the bookstore and the concept came from the creative happenstance of Mr. Lin Feng of CIFI Group. The bookstore’s philosophy that takes books as mountains, poems as books, flowers as decorations, tea as fragrance, and wine as companion, forms the spirit of the entire bookstore. If, ?Er You? ...