Two Yunxi bookshops in Shen'ao and Daijiashan villages, both in Zhejiang's Tonglu county [Photo by Yao Li/Provided to China Daily]

Even more surprisingly, Qian prefers targeting old villages that are hemorrhaging their young people, with just the elderly and children left behind. Those villages are usually located in picturesque surroundings, many with historical details.

Qian, accompanied by architects, will then choose old buildings from the villages to be renovated into well-lit modern bookstores that remain true to their original structures and decorative aspects.

Since April 2014, Qian has opened five bookstores in the countryside. All have attracted large numbers of tourists and even young villagers to return home.

Apart from their commercial success and resultant economic revival of the villages, these bookstores have become new public spaces for locals, benefiting the development of rural areas in the long run.

Centers of attention

In ancient times, people in villages gathered in ancestral halls or temples. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, these became people's great halls, village halls, sometimes granaries and even clinics. But times have changed.

As a result, bookstores can play the role of a spiritual center where villagers and visitors can gather together, says Zhao Chen, an architecture professor from Nanjing University.

On May 1, the latest branch of Librairie Avant-Garde, Shaxi Bai Ethnic Bookstore, in Jianchuan county, Southwest China's Yunnan province, was opened.

Its sales in the last six months have surpassed those of 12 older branches.

Apart from general books, there are specialist works about local culture, geography and history, such as the Ancient Tea-Horse Caravan Route and Bai ethnic culture.

Once a deserted granary, the modern bookstore has welcomed a lot of grandmothers and mothers taking young children to read or just walk around, and sample the atmosphere, like relaxed visitors to a park. People do not consider it, primarily, as a commercial place. Some children go to the bookstore to do homework because they feel at ease in the space, says Huang Yinwu, architect of the bookstore.

"It does not only provide space for book selling, but also serves as a local library," says Xia Zhujiu, an architectural theorist.

"It's not only a bookshop, but a cultural education base that the business co-constructs with the local community. Qian also agrees that this is a way that bookstores can really help to revive ailing villages," Xia says.

For many architects, one of the most important reasons for accepting a contract is to see whether the building will be properly used in the future. This is certainly the case for Dong Gong, an architect who is going to design a new bookstore for Librairie Avant-Garde in Chengxiang ancient town located north of Chengdu, provincial capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province.

"We hope that the building can really contribute to social life, and be used for either private or public purposes, regardless of praise or criticism, so that we can feel it's real, not just there to be part of a published photo," Dong says.

Based on the original old buildings, architects need to find solutions to connect the old with the new and the rural with the urban.