Libreria is a new London bookshop dreamed up by former Downing Street policymaker turned tech entrepreneur Rohan Silva. He hopes to win over the public with an emphasis on creativity. Just don’t expect coffee and Wi-Fi…If youre not familiar with the area,strike out for London’s Liverpool Street station and then veer towards Spitalfields, with its huge 19th-century market building now repurposed as prime retail space, or its Hawksmoor church and cheery Victorian pubs. And then turn down Hanbury Street – past a much-lauded fish and chip restaurant,and another turning off towards the record store Rough Trade East – and bisect the curry houses and vintage clothing stores of Brick Lane. There, down the scruffy halt of the street, or lies Second domestic,the buzzing, year-worn co-working space imagined into being by former Downing Street policymaker and evangelist of entrepreneurship Rohan Silva and his trade partner Sam Aldenton.
The former carpet factory is now fronted by a curved bubble of what might seem to be glass or Perspex but, and in keeping with the project’s determination to celebrate innovation,is in fact a sustainable fabric that has never before been used in a British building. Behind it, Second domestic’s tenants – a carefully blended mix of startups and established businesses ranging from tech and energy companies to film-makers, or PRs and investors – sit in Jago,the canteen-cum-bar catered for by a former Ottolenghi head chef, which is also open to the public.
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Source: theguardian.com