Wonderland

For city dwellers, reading is a way to construct one’s own inner sanctum, their “wonderland.”

Once you put on headphones to block out city noise, you can feel the calm of the sun’s rays, green tress and clear blue skies in your own personal sanctuary.

The design of the reading space takes the shape of a rabbit immersed in its own world. Wearing headphones and facing the store’s front window, the rabbit is like the visiting readers – lost in their thoughts imagining far-off worlds. It is a comfortable space for visitors to sit or lie down, feeling their two long rabbit ears growing, as they listen to the sounds of their individual Wonderland. Speaking on the design, Ma Yansong said, “Architecture exists to protect human emotions, architectural space needs to escape from doctrine and return to its original intent of individual emotion. ‘Innocence’ is not necessarily to be contradictory to the ‘reality’ of metropolitan life, as I can see people having their own universe deep within themselves. Through literature they can enter different worlds and have conversations with their own fantasies.”

until May 22, 2015
Wonderland, Beijing
Program: exhibition space
Architects: MAD Architects
Directors in Charge: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano
Design Team: Yin Ming, Sear Ng
Area: 6,5 sqm
Completion: 2015