Visitors wander through the new Tsutaya Bookstore at a media event on Dec. 21, three days before its official opening in a redeveloped cultural park called Columbia Circle in Shanghai.

A visitor to the new bookstore peruses a book whose cover reads “Mo Du,” a nickname for Shanghai.

A pair of spiral shaped stone pillars caught the attention of this bookstore visitor. The new store is set in an old mansion that was the Columbia Country Club, a popular hangout for Americans in the 1920s.

A crowd gathers around a giant book as its pages are turned by a staff member in the bookstore.

A child looks up at a visitor taking a book from a shelf in the new Tsutaya Bookstore in Shanghai.

A visitor peruses a selection in the Tsutaya Bookstore. The Japanese retailer operates more than 1,100 outlets around the world, including its flagship Daikanyama store in Tokyo which is known as one of the world’s most beautiful.

Readers take advantage of the window seat in the Shanghai bookstore’s calm surroundings.

Visitors record the official opening of Tsutaya Bookstore in Shanghai on their phones.