Zall was founded in Wuhan and is one of the top 500 enterprises in China. The Group's ties to Wuhan don't stop there, for the locals, Zall represents the city's football team. Zall was born in 2013, when three large Xinhua bookstores closed, making Zall the largest bookstore in Hankou and the first comprehensive bookstore in Wuhan, attracting more than 20,000 readers on the opening day.
Zhuoer is magnificent, with a construction area of more than 10,000 square meters. There are 150,000 books and more than 80,000 titles, which is twice as many as at the beginning of the store. The disadvantage lies in the lack of spatial interactivity, the bookstore is divided into 4 floors, and each function is isolated in different spaces, which is slightly similar to the traditional Xinhua bookstore. If you only focus on the books themselves, you should pay attention to Hall A on the first floor, which is also the most designed area of the store, with reddish-brown bookshelves and a mezzanine area full of books.
The first floor can be divided into two spaces, north and south, of which the north half is the "A hall", which is the most strict bookstore in the whole store. There are a number of free seats along the windows, and this area is separated by a row of bookshelves into a separate space for a peaceful atmosphere. Popular literature is deliberately placed here so that readers can access it. The other bookshelves on the first floor are used to display recommended books or new books, and the temporary shelves have a wide range of categories, usually eye-catching categories, and the comic works of Marvel and DC are full of hero culture, and their bright colors are easy to identify. A separate collection of Matt Ridley's works, a noble member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, whose works are accessible and wide-ranging, ranging from economics to genetics to anthropology, is also included. Created in 2015, "Top Down" is a slightly similar structure to the popular "A Brief History of Mankind", but with more rigorous and conservative logic, and a small part of the new book mentions China.
The rest of Hall A is dominated by literary books, and this strategy is extremely mainstream in Wuhan. Zall is classified by country, most of which are award-winning classics, although some popular, but the number and variety of victory. If you want to buy literary books, Drow is undoubtedly the best choice. It is especially worth mentioning that Hall A is also one of the few 24-hour bookstores in Wuhan, and it is free to open in the evening. Bookstores such as Wuwai have made similar attempts, but they have all failed, and in comparison, Zhuoer seems to be rare.
Many bookstores are interested in integrating into the cultural heritage of the local city, and Zall's plan is quite typical. At the junction of Hall A and Hall B (the south half of the first floor), it is the urban area of Wuhan, and the books and cultural and creative supplies are related to the three towns. The bookshelf divider marks the major events in Wuhan that have been recognized by the mainstream, corresponding to the year.
The area on the second floor concentrates most of the cultural and creative products in the store, and compared with the new bookstore that pays attention to style, its categories are more messy, including the four treasures of the old study, as well as practical stationery such as Baile and New Zealand. Small pieces such as comic paper art have a certain level in Wuhan bookstores, but the stores are only neatly arranged and exhibited, and the style is no different from that of state-run stores in the 90s.
Compared with the rigid history and philosophy books on the second floor, readers can often have more fun in the independent space on the third and fourth floors. Renamed the Old Book Hall in 2017, the bookstore is full of out-of-print old books, some of which date back to the Republic of China or the Qing Dynasty, and there are thousands of books. Xiaowei Lecture Hall and Xiaowei Paradise are oriented to children, the former holds parent-child activities, and the latter sells picture books and toys. The small theater is used for book signings, meet-and-greets, academic seminars, etc. The quality of the activities was quite high, with the help of writers such as Liu Xinglong, as well as the knowledge of lectures by professors from Wuhan University, and the content was not limited to literature, but also covered natural and social sciences.
Zall Bookstore has a variety of functions, many books, the store introduces more than 1,000 new books every month, and changes iteratives, and each bookshelf also has a level number, which is quite friendly to readers. The biggest disadvantage is that the space is not very interactive and does not closely connect with the theme of the book. This is due to the architectural structure, the predecessor of Zall Bookstore is a factory, and the various spaces are more suitable for the flat departmental organization in the enterprise for office. The café on the third floor was the largest in the store, but because the old book hall and children's book area were independent, there were few readers, and instead it became a place for business negotiations, and the environment was very noisy. The phenomenon varies, and the various functional areas of Zall are more like a collection of independent small shops. However, when it comes to reading, the "Hall A" on the first floor is a rare place, which is the quietest reading area in Wuhan.
