The Design of This Japanese Library Evokes a Curving River
Books tend to be rectilinear. But that doesn’t mean their repositories have to be. For this library in Kumamoto, Japan, design director Kazunobu Nakamura conceived a system of curved shelves to evoke the Kikuchi River, which runs through the city, located on the island of Kyushu. The nearly 330 linear feet of bookcases—composed of steel columns supporting shelves of pale Japanese ash finished with clear urethane—wind through the 18,300-square-foot space, dividing it into discrete nooks.
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