Tianjin Binhai Library

Inside a white, ribbed box on the edge of a new cultural district, a luminous sphere sits in an eye-shaped opening, and around it bookshelves rise in curving terraces from floor to ceiling like the contour lines of a landscape. The Tianjin Binhai Library, nicknamed "The Eye", opened in October 2017 in Tianjin's Binhai New Area and immediately became one of the most photographed interiors in China: in its first week, around 10,000 people a day queued to get in.

The building was designed by the Rotterdam architects MVRDV, led by Winy Maas, together with the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute. Its outer volume was fixed in advance by a masterplan from the German firm gmp for the Binhai Cultural Center, a group of five cultural buildings by different architects, so the designers turned the drama inward. A large oval hole is punched through the façade, and the mirrored sphere at its centre, which houses an auditorium for about 110 people, appears from the park outside like an iris. The stepped shelving that wraps the atrium continues to the exterior, where each level becomes a louvre. In all the library covers about 33,700 square metres on five levels, with reading rooms and lounges on the lower floors and meeting rooms, offices and two rooftop patios above.

The project went from first sketch to opening in about three years, the fastest MVRDV had ever built, and the speed left its mark. Rooms behind the atrium that were meant to give access to the upper shelves were dropped during construction, against the architects' advice. As a result the highest tiers cannot hold real books; instead they are faced with perforated aluminium panels printed with images of book spines. The illusion has been much discussed, but it does not diminish the effect of the space: a white amphitheatre of shelving curving around a glowing orb, half library and half public square, where visitors sit, climb and read on the terraces themselves.

Getting there

The library stands in the Binhai Cultural Center in the Binhai New Area of Tianjin, about 3 km from the centre of Tanggu and roughly 45 km east of central Tianjin. Tianjin Binhai International Airport (TSN) is about 31 km to the west.