Bookstore weaves a new village story
Combining a renowned chain brand with an award-winning architect injects poetic vitality into rural area, Yang Yang reports.
"Great poems are deeply rooted in concrete things. When placed within a village setting, they don't feel jarring at all — instead, they seamlessly integrate with the environment," he says.
Chen's team transformed the Baiwu village into an exhibition space, with more than 100 poems by domestic and international poets posted in the streets, alleys and fields, on walls, doors and windows.
While strolling around the village, one would see The Forge on Forge Street, and Robert Frost's The Wood-Pile hiding beside a woodpile. Hanging in a tidy courtyard, one would read Jorge Luis Borges' Un Patio (A Patio). By a soot-darkened hearth lies Hou Ma's Snow Falls Quietly and Dinner Is Getting Ready.
Sitting at a basin on the east bank of the Jinsha River, the upper stream of the Yangtze, China's longest river, Baiwu village once served as a vital courier station along a major route for military and merchant traffic more than 2,000 years ago.
Along with copper mine development in the mid to late-Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Baiwu became a major hub for south-to-north copper transport. A primary copper source for the country's mints during the Ming and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, the village is hailed as "the inaugural stop on the long supply route to the capital".
