My cabinet: Livraria Lello / Porto
Fully booked
The team behind this literary haven is developing a business model for the modern age.
With a history dating to 1881, Livraria Lello is frequently referred to as the world’s most beautiful bookshop. It’s a title the institution is proud of and one that provides a calling card for its host city, Porto, where it attracts thousands of visitors every day. But there is more to Livraria Lello than cosmetic appeal. Among the ceiling-high bookshelves, grand wooden staircases and stained-glass windows operates a dynamic business, concerned with preserving an important piece of the city’s patrimony and remaining relevant as a 21st-century cultural player.
While large queues are generally a good sign, they have posed some challenges here. “People would come in, take a picture and forget altogether that this is a bookshop,” says Livraria Lello’s manager, Aurora Pedro Pinto, who with her husband bought a majority stake in the company in 2015 and the remaining shares in 2023. The solution to the problem of sightseers came in the form of a small fee: visitors are now required to pay for an €8 voucher upon entry, which can be used for book purchases. “We’re not a museum,” says Pinto. “Our aim has always been to form readers.”
“Forming readers”, for the shop’s managers, is about more than just selling books. It requires planning a cultural calendar, with signings and readings that will soon spill over into a building acquired nextdoor. Livraria Lello also publishes its own beautifully designed editions, which today account for many of the shop’s book sales. Then there are the collaborations on products and events. “We partner with several international institutions, from Pantone and Zara to the Antoine de Saint Exupéry Youth Foundation,” says Pinto. Livraria Lello teamed up with Bic last year to launch a pen celebrating the Porto-based Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Álvaro Siza. That’s not to mention restocking the 3,000 to 5,000 books sold daily or managing the booksellers who make sure they are flying off the shelves. Pinto tells monocle, “We always say, with some boldness, that we want to make the whole world read.”
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