The word "wabi" is derived from the Japanese aesthetic concept of "wabi-sabi", which means to pay attention to the inside of things, and not deliberately pursue the appearance, "honya" means "bookstore" in Japanese.
Wabiji Honya is the first concept bookstore in southwest China designed by a star designer, with renowned architect Shuhei Aoyama as the space designer and Japanese illustrator Masato Maekawa in charge of the visual system design. The bookstore is a free-standing duplex building, covered with glass on all sides, with a circular wooden staircase connecting the upper and lower floors, and bookshelves in the form of wooden cylinders, of different sizes, scattered in various corners. The colonnade bookshelf is a new upstart in bookstore design in recent years, and Wabiji Honya is no exception. Embarrassingly, although these bookshelves are beautiful and atmospheric, they are not convenient for readers to access the books on the upper shelf.
If you are interested in architecture and art, then Wabiji Honya is a must-visit bookstore. In Wabiji Honya, there are almost no books on literature, history, and philosophy, but on the contrary, the bookstore mainly focuses on architecture, design, and art, and there are many niche books on the outskirts. The bookstore covers an area of only 800 square meters, but it has clearly planned four theme spaces: "Art Coffee", "Life Research Institute", "Urban Art Book" and "Children's Design Education". Among these themes, the most distinctive is children's design education, which is a special children's architectural design thinking training class set up by the bookstore for children to teach architectural knowledge. On the first floor of the bookstore, there is a wide variety of cultural and creative products, both original and from other brands such as Coolercolour and Chenguang. The second floor is the main venue for events, and the wabi-honya has a lot of activity resources, and regular events are held every week, and the 2018 Overseas Collectible Art Book Exhibition, Film Photography Sharing Session, and so on have been held.
Compared with many long-established bookstores in Chengdu, although the newly opened Wabiji Honya has a small collection of books, it is a rare bookstore specializing in architecture and design in China, and it has a distinctive personality. Regrettably, there are still some readers who report that there are many problems such as bookshelves vacancy and rare sample books in the bookstore.
