China’s futuristic library
Tianjin : A futuristic Chinese library has wowed book lovers around the world with its white, undulating shelves rising from floor to ceiling, but if you read between the lines you’ll find something is missing.
Those rows upon rows of book spines are mostly images printed on the aluminium plates that make up the backs of the shelves.
Pictures of the sleek Tianjin Binhai Library have gone viral on Chinese social media and abroad since its opening last month, with headlines trumpeting it as the “world’s best library” and a “book lover’s dream”.
On weekends, an average of 15,000 visitors flock to the six-storey space in the eastern port city of Tianjin.
Designed by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, the building looks like an eye when viewed from the still unfinished park outside, with a spherical auditorium as the iris at its centre.
The library contains 200,000 books and it has grand ambitions to grow its collection to 1.2 million.
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