Tianjin Binhai Library

The atrium of Tianjin Binhai Library in China, photographed in 2024, with its terraced white shelves rolling up toward the ceiling. MVRDV designed the library with the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute, and it went from first sketch to opening in just three years, in 2017. The stepped shelves are also stairs and seats, built for sitting, reading and climbing, around a luminous sphere called the Eye that holds an auditorium. Look closely at the highest rows: those shelves stay empty, faced with perforated aluminum plates printed to look like books.