Chinese studio Trace Architecture Office has repaired and renovated a historic building in Yunnan, China to house the Weishan Chongzheng Academy Bookstore.
Trace Architecture Office (TAO) has breathed new life into the Weishan Chongzheng Academy, whose history dates back over 500 years, by creating space for the Librairie Avant-Garde bookstore chain.
“The Chongzheng Academy was one of the first academies in Yunnan’s history and had the most extensive book collection in the region,” said TAO staff Sheng Zhong said Dezeen.
“In order to preserve a wealth of historical information such as colorful paintings, inscriptions and stone carvings from different eras as completely as possible, we have established three principles: ‘security, reversibility and distinguishability’.”
Designed to be a “catalyst” to attract both locals and tourists to the Old Town, the renovated building still retains much of its original wood and carved stone structure.
At the eastern end of the site, TAO replaced two 1980s administrative buildings with a raised concrete volume that houses an auditorium and sunken bookstore below. A floor-to-ceiling glass facade was built to create a new street frontage.
In order to achieve a better connection to the existing structure, the studio adapted the historical courtyard layout of the academy by introducing two “book galleries”.
Facing each other across the courtyard, these slender steel volumes are clad in metal grilles, and along their edges, long, tiered benches form seating areas overlooking an outdoor space for reading and performance.
The metal structures of the book galleries were designed to provide a strong modern contrast to the existing structure, but to be lightweight and easy to dismantle later if necessary.
“The design deconstructs the traditional plan of the academy and offers visitors a new spatial experience,” Zhong told Dezeen.
“The book gallery not only restructures the academy’s internal spatial structure, but also reconnects the various courtyards, the auditorium, the wing rooms and the adjoining rooms.”
The former rooms of the academy around the original courtyard were converted into a café, reading rooms, small exhibition rooms and toilets.
In these rooms, TAO has retained the wood and stone structure of the academy as a background and complemented it with new dark wood furniture.
Due to Weishan’s mild climate, the room divisions can be left open, allowing seamless transitions between new and old, as well as between inside and outside.
“As you walk through the academy and between the book galleries and historical buildings, the scenery changes with every step,” Zhong described.
“It is like visiting a Chinese garden full of spatial experiences and a journey through antiquity and modernity.”
Trace Architecture Office was founded in Beijing in 2009 by Hua Li.
The studio had previously adapted another historic building for Librairie Avant-Garde, inserting a glazed volume between the rammed earth walls of an abandoned rural house in Fujian Province.
Photography by Arch-Exist Photography.
