Beijing Mediatheque

The project reconstructs Beijing Books Building, which locates on Chang'an Avenue, the grandest street across the center of the ancient capital city. Our project aims to create a public center of media resources on Chang’an Avenue, providing a contemporary extension to the street that historically represents the political power of China.
With the rise of digital media, people no longer take reading books as a necessity. Instead, as knowledge is now carried by multiple vehicles, the action of gaining knowledge is now deeply merged with our life. Unfortunately, most people are still unaware of this tendency and fail to imbibe information in their daily life.
Thus, the mediatheque calls for not only a sacred space for books, but also a tender attitude for public life. To encourage citizens to rediscover the meaning of books and other media of information in daily life, we need to incorporate various social events into our complex. Hence, we propose the project to entwine media and life. The circulation on the site is now flowing as a whole. People can now wander between life and media, always sensing the winding parts of daily life or knowledge acquisition.