Kinokuniya Shinjuku Main Store 9th floor salon

This project is to revive Kinokuniya Bookstore's salon, a place of hospitality, on the top floor of its flagship Shinjuku main store building.
When the building was constructed in 1964, founder Shigekazu Tanabe created a salon to serve as a social gathering place for the literary world.
Time has passed since then, and in order to bring that lost space back to life in the present day, following the renovation of the Shinjuku flagship store, which took place from 2021 to 2023, our company was responsible for design, layout, construction of this new project.

In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about the decline of physical bookstores that do not rely on paper books or e-commerce. As a leader in the bookstore industry, Kinokuniya Bookstore, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2027, wanted to "create a place in Shinjuku, the place where the company was founded, where people involved in book production and those who support the bookstore industry can gather and interact, in order to liven up the bookstore industry."
The challenge was how to create a space that would foster rich interaction in a small 140m2 space in a corner of the office floor of the Shinjuku main store.

The building is a modernist architectural heritage designed by Kunio Maekawa and is characterised by abundant natural light from its light courtyard.
In this light-filled space, we have created a pathway from the casual salon atmosphere to the slightly more formal chairman's office and reception room, and have created a place where publishers, authors, and other industry-related people visiting Kinokuniya can be welcomed and spend quality time chatting leisurely about the books casually arranged on the shelves.

The space is sprinkled with elements that will spark conversation, such as a showcase displaying the chairman's valuable collection, stained glass featuring the Kinokuniya Bookstore logo, and a low table finished by a lacquer artisan affected by the Noto Peninsula earthquake, creating the atmosphere of a private space at Kinokuniya Bookstore and creating a special atmosphere for visitors.
The lighting is also designed with consideration for circadian rhythms (body clocks) and is planned to change the sense of tension in the space between day and night with adjustable color and brightness lighting that links with the passage of time, allowing the lighting to match the atmosphere.
In addition, the paintings that had been displayed in the former salon were installed on the walls of the reception room, reviving the salon as a new one.