美国国家公共电台 NPR Inside 'The World's Most Beautiful Bookstore' In Argentina

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

We're going to take you now to a bookstore in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's called the Ateneo Grand Splendid, and National Geographic 1 just named it The World's Most Beautiful Bookstore. This may be news to some people, but ALL THINGS CONSIDERED was seriously ahead of the curve on this one. My colleague Bob Mondello did a report 18 years ago, shortly after Grand Splendid Theater, built in 1919, was converted into a bookstore.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE 2: Impresario 3 Max Glucksman wanted his new theater, the Grand Splendid, to remind people of the Paris Opera. He had it built with three ornately decorated balconies hugging the back wall of an auditorium 4 decked out with gilded 5 statues, marble columns and a ceiling mural celebrating the end of World War I. In the days before air conditioning, the domed 7 roof actually opened in good weather to give theater audiences a glimpse of the stars. It is a spectacular space, no less so today after a $3 million renovation 8 than at any time in the more than 80 years since it was built.

But there is one difference today - where once the vast auditorium was filled with rows of theater seats, it now has rows of bookshelves. The Grand Splendid has been converted into what is quite possibly the most spectacular bookstore on Earth. The transformation 9, the brainchild of Adolfo de Vincenzi, who has loved this theater since his student days and still recalls the films he saw here whenever he could take a break from his accounting 10 classes three blocks away.

ADOLFO DE VINCENZI: It's a movie of Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman. "Sonata 11 Otonal" was in Spanish. Every time I finish with my exams, I said, that's my vacation. I come here.

MONDELLO: The Grand Splendid was seriously rundown when it was acquired by de Vincenzi's company, El Ateneo, a bookstore chain, sort of the Barnes & Noble of Argentina. The theater had succumbed 12 to the same trend towards suburban 13 multiplexes that has made downtown movie palaces obsolete 14 in the U.S. So when de Vincenzi heard the lease was available and looked around to what was happening to the other theaters that once lined the nearby avenues, he says he didn't have any second thoughts.

DE VINCENZI: We didn't decide to stop with this building being a theater. Business made that it was not profitable like a theater or like a cinema. So we did is put a bookstore instead. A block from here, there were two other cinemas that finished. They were just launched a month ago like a parking lot (laughter).

MONDELLO: Because this particular theater was an architectural treasure, the Ateneo chain had some trouble at first with city hall, but opposition 15 melted away when the public got a look at the refurbished Grand Splendid - brighter, cleaner and with plenty of activities to guarantee that it would still attract crowds. New uses were found for almost every inch of the building. The broad stage that was always there behind the screen is now a bustling 16 cafe.

The orchestra section and first balcony are packed with bookshelves. And the box seats, once the most expensive in the house, have been outfitted 17 as private reading rooms with cushy armchairs and a great view. The top two balconies which look down on all this have been turned into an art gallery filled with colorful paintings and sculptures. And past the art, way up near the ceiling dome 6 behind a locked door, there's something the public doesn't see - the room where tango singer Carlos Gardel made his first recordings 19.

DE VINCENZI: Here we are over the (unintelligible). This is the place where the tango singer - working here. It was really the only use this floor had.

MONDELLO: Was for the recording 18?

DE VINCENZI: Yeah. And it was 90 years ago. It's a kind of magic, this place.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHORRA")

CARLOS GARDEL: (Singing in Spanish).

MONDELLO: Gardel is only the most famous of the artists associated with the Grand Splendid. During the theater's early years, international ballet companies and theater troupes 20 played here. And for decades, it was one of the city's premier 21 movie houses. So it's not surprising that in its new incarnation, it's the end spot for visiting authors who flock to the stage cafe for book signings and discussions.

Which is not to suggest that the dramatic arts are no longer represented at the Grand Splendid. In fact, there is one actor who is present here every day, though not on stage. Natalio Povarche, whose art gallery commands a terrific view from the top two balconies, has appeared in more than a dozen Argentine films. So he feels right at home in this theater, especially, says his daughter Mariana, because it was here that his very pregnant wife dragged him one fateful day some 42 years ago.

MONDELLO: And she came to see the - can you help me with the title? - (speaking Spanish) - the "Cat On A"....

MONDELLO: "On A Hot Tin Roof," right?

MONDELLO: ..."On A Hot Tin Roof." And she told my father that she thought that it was about - to born. And he said, well, let's go to hospital just now. She said, no, I'm not going to leave the cinema until they see the very end of the film. When the very end came, she was feeling really very, very bad. And his neighbors told her not to wait a taxi, he was going to take both of them to the hospital because, if not, I was going to get born here.

MARIANA: Now, Mariana feels she's been reborn here in an artistic 22 sense, working in her father's gallery even as she advances her own acting 23 career. Because her mother is an astrologist, she laughs that the stars must have had a hand in bringing her back here. The stars that audiences could once see through that open dome - and that can now be found on the astronomy shelves on the right side of the first balcony, or the astrology section on the main floor. Does Mariana miss what once was here? Of course, but she notes that the old mix of performing arts has been replaced by a new mix that also has value.

MARIANA: You can have your coffee right on the stage, on the real stage. And while you're reading or having your coffee, you can see the paintings from downstairs. I think that it's very magic. And it's a privilege to be in a place like this, a very, very special place. I don't know if there's another one like this one in the rest of the world.

MONDELLO: At the Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires, I'm Bob Mondello.