Our Favourites: The Best Interiors 2021

At the end of the year, we present the three best interiors of 2021 that have convinced our editorial team in every respect. A bookstore in a former Russian Orthodox church in Shanghai, a spectacular hotel in Japan and an underground concert hall in Lichtenberg offer unique indoor experiences.

Church of Reading: Bookshop in Shanghai

For a bookseller specialized in poetry, Yu Ting and his Wutopia Lab studio have created what may well be the most unconventional shelving system built in Shanghai for decades. The ribbed cupola of 5-mm steel sheeting forms a room-within-a-room construction in the old Russian Orthodox church of St. Nicholas.

Client: Shanghai Century Cloud Culture Development Co., Ltd
Architecture: Wutopia Lab
Location: 16 Gao Lan Lu, Shanghai (CN)

To Slumber in a Green Hill: Shiroiya Hotel in Maebashi by Sou Fujimoto

The Shiroiya Hotel lets guests decide whether they want to overnight in a spectacularly gutted postwar building or beneath the grass growing on an artificial hill. Both are the work of Sou Fujimoto Architects and represent contributions to the revitalization of the industrial city of Maebashi, which is located northwest of Tokyo.

Client: Shiroiya Hotel Inc.
Architecture: Sou Fujimoto Architects
Location: 2-2-15 Honmachi, Maebashi City (JP)

Subterranean Concert Hall by Peter Haimerl

From outside, it is invisible. This merely increases the surprise when visitors enter the underground concert hall at Haus Marteau.

Architecture: Peter Haimerl Architektur (DE)
Client: Bezirk Oberfranken
Location: Lobensteiner Straße 4, 95192 Lichtenberg (DE)