The Book As Experience

You’ve heard the expression, “getting lost in a book.” One space in Buenos Aires, Al Ateneo Grand Splendid, once a performing arts theater, is creating an immersive retail experience for the books to live in.

Built in 1919, Al Ateneo is now a 21,000 square foot bookstore and maintains its beautiful frescoed ceilings and gilt handrails harkening to another age.

As reading material increasingly goes digital, the book is going to seem like an artifact of a more quaint age when people carried physical objects around to read. In that sense, Al Ateneo is like a museum shop with purchaseable artifacts of rare, and hence luxury, items. The book as premium good.

In New York City, venerable Scribner’s publishing house turned into a Sephora, and Rizzoli has closed, possibly morphing into another retail space. These morphing spaces are also examples of a trend we call Open, in particular their modularity.