Argentinean Theatre Converted Into Beautiful Bookshop
A repurposed theatre in Buenos Aires has been turned into possibly the world's prettiest bookshop.
Possibly the world's most beautifully located bookstore, can now be found in the form of Buenos Aires' El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a shop housed inside what was once one of Argentina's premier theatres.
The theatre was originally built in 1919 by an Italian architect and used as a theatre for tango concerts and the like, before being converted into a cinema. Things began to get a bit tough, but instead of letting the beautiful building languish into disrepair, it was leased in 2000 by a publishing house and found new life in the form of a bookstore. Now over a million people come through it's doors every year.
The private, velvet-upholstered boxes are now the reading rooms, the stage is an in-store cafe, and the shelves cleave perfectly to the theatre's original shape. Plus you have to admire a building that's calling itself both grand and splendid. I mean, what's not to like?
In the wake of bookstores like Borders and Angus & Robertson going bust, and the threats to independent bookshops across the country from cheaper online books and other recession-related woes, places like the Ateneo might point towards a more sustainable future for the industry. By repurposing something beautiful and creating a space people actively seek out and genuinely want to be in, instead of somewhere beige, plastic and muzak-filtered, you can save not just books but the architecture that might otherwise go to waste.
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