Obviously we love bookshops here at mono.kultur, but most of those we write about follow the same model: stock from a variety of publishers, chosen selectively, covering a range of topics. Rarely does a store veer from this time-tested way of doing business.
POST, in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Village (an “urban retreat“), is different. They hit on the incredibly novel idea of stocking only one imprint, for a small period of time, and then switching to someone totally new. That way, the focus is entirely on a single publisher’s practice, allowing visitors to explore one vision without the visual and conceptual distractions of so many other screaming words. There are downsides, to be sure; part of the glory of stores like Printed Matter, Pro qm, or Motto is discovering new, small presses who haven’t produced enough to warrant POST’s kind of focus, and also to see different publishing programs in dialogue with one another. Too often, however, a publisher’s program gets lost in the morass, and readers are poorer for it.
POST has already had a great run of imprints, including Roma, Walther König, and Lars Müller, and are currently featuring Gestalten, a Berlin-based design press.
POST
Yoyogi VILLAGE 1-28-9
Yoyogi Shibuya-ku
Tokyo 151-0053
Japan
