Kinokuniya Shinjuku Main Store 9th floor salon

This project aims to revive the hospitality salon at Kinokuniya Bookstore, located on the top floor of their flagship Shinjuku main store building.
When the building was constructed in 1964, the founder, Shoichi Tanabe, created a salon that served as a social gathering place for literary figures.
Time passed, and in order to revive that lost space in the modern era, following the Shinjuku main store renovation that took place from 2021 to 2023, our company was in charge of design, layout, production, and construction for 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.