European Commission - Culture - Magazine - A Tour of Great European Bookshops

A Tour of Great European Bookshops

by Lorenzo Bellettini

At the heart of European capitals - from Portugal to France, the Netherlands and Britain - there are magic places where time stops still. Tucked away from bustling bestselling bookstore chains and hectic online commerce, small independent bookshops are still thriving and offer a special charm. In this little tour, we will visit five of these oases of culture and quietness, where architecture, history and knowledge merge to create unusual places: Livraria Lello in Porto, Posada in Brussels, Hatchards in London, Shakespeare and Co. in Paris and Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht.

Located at Rua das Carmelitas 144 in the capital of Portugal (just a five-minute walk away from downtown), the Livraria Lello has been selling books (fiction and non-fiction, including translations of Portuguese literature and poetry works, English and French books) since 1881 and is regarded today as the most beautiful bookshop in Porto and one of the most extraordinary in the world. Designed by Francisco Xavier Esteves (the architect who introduced the use of reinforced concrete for civil buildings in Portugal), the bookstore's architecture and interior design are stunning. The façade gracefully mingles a neo-gothic design and Art Deco motifs (it is, in fact, one of the best examples of the so-called "second eclecticism" in Portugal). Inside, a breathtakingly curvaceous red stairway (inspired by the Parisian Galeries Lafayette) connects the two levels of the building, between glass-enclosed bookshelves arched at the top, heavily decorated walls, pillars ornamented with bronze bas-reliefs of Portuguese literary figures, beautifully intricate wooden panels and the magnificent stained-glass skylight with Lello's motto "decus in labore" (which roughly translates as "grace and work" and reflects the spirit which permeates the building). One of the best-kept secrets in Porto is the four-table coffee shop on the second floor, serving coffee, port, and cigars.

In the centre of Brussels, near St Magdalene's church, in a street with numerous bookshops on both sides, lies a little old house with huge windows and an amazing interior. Unlike Livraria Lello, what makes this little bookshop so extraordinary is not its architectural style, which is indeed quite simple, oozing quietness. Rather, it is its content. For Posada Books is perhaps the largest art bookshop in Belgium: its stock is such that every inch of its interior, from the floor to the ceiling, is stacked with books and catalogues. This is one of the few bookstores where it may actually be possible to get lost while browsing. Art is the focus of the business, and in this domain it stores just about everything, from contemporary art books to exhibition catalogues dating back to the beginning of the last century, both new and second-hand, in splendidly multilingual sections (since the books are not categorised by language but only by topic) and creating the magic impression of being at the centre of a miniature library of Babel.

At 187 Piccadilly, in the heart of London (next door to Fortnum & Mason, opposite the Royal Academy), lies, in the quiet discretion of a long tradition, one of UK's most charming bookshops. Hatchards, which has been trading since 1797, is the oldest surviving bookshop in London (following the bookshop at Cambridge University, the oldest in Britain). The bookshop oozes aristocratic flair not only because of the place's over two centuries' old history, but also, and perhaps mainly, because of the history of its customers. It has counted some of Britain's greatest political, social and literary figures among its regulars, from Queen Charlotte, Disraeli and Wellington to Kipling, Wilde and Lord Byron. With a staff who have always had a reputation for a knowledgeable and professional service, today Hatchards fully retains the spirit of days past, whose charming interior has been often compared to a rambling old house, with its six floors of small rooms all linked together curling around a central staircase. The bookshop offers an excellent range of books on the shelves, mostly quality-bound hardbacks which would look splendid in the west-wing library of one's stately mansion.

Shakespeare and Co What lies at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, near Place St Michel and a few steps away from the Seine River in the heart of Paris is not an English mansion, but offers Sunday tea, poetry readings and writer's meetings. Above all, what makes the bookshop Shakespeare & Company so famous is its glorious past and its artistic aura. It continues the tradition of the original Shakespeare & Co., which opened in 1919 and represented a bastion of English culture in Paris until World War II, when it was closed after the occupation of France in 1941. The shop's first owner, Sylvia Beach, was famous for her refined literary taste and her ability to provide books which were not normally available. She courageously sold D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover when it was banned in the UK and USA, and famously financed the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses in 1922. Ms Beach's institution counted among its faithful customers such writers as Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway (who also mentioned the shop in his novel A Movable Feast). The current popularity of the second owner - who opened a new shop with a different name in 1951 and later renamed it Shakespeare & Company in honour of its model (even passing on the legendary owner's name to his daughter Sylvia, the current owner) - is well-deserved, since thanks to him the bookshop became yet again a cultural centre in the 1950s, attracting many writers of the Beat Generation, such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs, and handing down to posterity its fame as a holy temple of English-speaking literature in France.

A holy temple in the real sense of the word is the fifth, and last, great bookshop in our tour. The thirteenth-century Dominican church in Maastricht was not long ago being used to store the many bicycles of the city, but thanks to a radically inspirational refurbishment by acclaimed Dutch architects Merkx + Girod it has been turned into a literary temple and one of the most unusual bookshops on the planet. The Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicaen, which opened about a year ago, retains the character and charm of the old church while at the same time modernising it. The high rise, minimalist and modern bookshelf which dominates the central navy and overcomes any suggestion of fustiness, beautifully contrasts the classical interior which boasts ceiling paintings dating back to the seventeenth century. The café bar develops around a cross-shaped table, where it is possible to browse books in holy tranquillity.

Whether an 800-year-old quiet church, a new-gothic and Art Deco building, a little old house crammed to the ceiling with art books, a meeting place for the London nobility or the epicentre of literary Sunday teas on the Continent, these great European bookshops are something unique. They merge tradition and innovation, courage and devotion. We can only hope that they will continue to thrive, for it is good to know where to go when you are looking for a bit of magic and tranquillity, where to bask in the aura of beauty, history and knowledge, enjoying the feeling that, for the moment of your visit at least, time can stop still.