The Beijing firm TAO | Trace Architecture Office has renovated the historic Weishan Chongzheng Academy, founded over 500 years ago, transforming the building into a bookstore for Librairie Avant-Garde, with reading rooms, a small theater, exhibition spaces, and a café, but in such a way that a good part of the original structure of wood and stone is preserved.

On the easternmost side of the premises, two 1980s administrative buildings have been replaced by an elevated concrete volume that harbors the theater. Two elongated volumes of steel face one another in the main exterior space and are clad with metal grids that contain shelves and also form tiered seating. This results in contrasts between new and preexisting.