The new wing of Livraria Lello
Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, the new wing marks the most significant expansion in Livraria Lello's 120-year history.
Extending the bookshop to almost 1,000 m², the project carefully complements the historic building, resolving the spatial and accessibility challenges of a twentieth-century monument while creating new spaces for literature, contemporary art and year-round cultural programming.
New visitor facilities, accessible routes, exhibition spaces and an auditorium for year-round cultural programming allow visitors to spend more time exploring the bookshop and engaging with literature, architecture and contemporary art.
Together, the historic bookshop and its new wing form a continuous journey, reaffirming Livraria Lello's belief that books deserve extraordinary spaces.
Art, architecture and literature in a single journey.
Hephaestus & Aphrodite
Opened in 1906, Livraria Lello’s historic building remains the beginning of every visit. Home to the iconic staircase and the stained-glass skylight Decus in Labore, it is one of Portugal’s most celebrated cultural landmarks, where architecture, craftsmanship and literature have come together for more than a century.
As visitors make their way to the new wing, they are welcomed by a monumental drawing by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Álvaro Siza Vieira, brought to life by artist Ana Aragão.
Inspired by the blacksmith depicted in Livraria Lello’s original stained-glass window, the drawing reimagines Hephaestus, the divine craftsman of Greek mythology, creating a symbolic link between the bookshop’s past and its future.
If Hephaestus once forged the legendary weapons of the gods, Livraria Lello proposes a different idea.
The greatest weapons of our time are books.
They forge knowledge instead of violence, imagination instead of fear, and freedom instead of oppression.
Alongside Hephaestus stands Aphrodite, whose presence introduces one of Álvaro Siza Vieira’s subtle touches of humour while echoing the beauty that has defined Livraria Lello for more than 120 years.
POP Collection
Celebrating the enduring power of literary classics.
Designed by Studio Eduardo Aires, the POP Collection transforms some of the world’s greatest literary classics into contemporary design objects through a distinctive visual language of bespoke typography, bold colour, debossed cloth bindings and reversible French-fold dust jackets.
Published in six languages and spanning 43 titles, the collection has received international recognition, including the Graphis Platinum Award and Communication Arts Best in Show.
Because the greatest literary classics never cease to be contemporary and POP.
A4, by Ai Weiwei
One of the most influential artists of the twenty-first century, Ai Weiwei is internationally renowned for exploring the relationship between art, freedom and human rights. Having experienced censorship and political persecution firsthand, freedom of expression is not simply the subject of his work—it is part of his own story.
Created exclusively for Livraria Lello, A4 takes a single sheet of paper as its starting point. The blank page becomes both symbol and possibility: the place where books begin, where ideas take shape and where the freedom to write, publish and think is constantly tested.
Designed in dialogue with Álvaro Siza Vieira’s architecture, the installation transforms this floor into a space where contemporary art, literature and critical thought meet.
Every book begins with a blank page. Every blank page holds the possibility of changing the world.
“Dua Lipa opened a banned books library in one of the world’s most beautiful bookshops”
Manifesto Library & Cultural Auditorium
Hidden beneath the new wing lies its most precious room.
If the original bookshop’s lower ground floor is home to the Gema Room, where Livraria Lello preserves its rarest books, the new wing holds a different kind of treasure. Here, ideas take centre stage.
At its heart is Livraria Lello’s auditorium, a space dedicated to year-round cultural programming, where writers, artists, thinkers and readers come together to explore the defining questions of our time through conversations, lectures and performances.
A place devoted to dialogue could only be surrounded by books. That is how the Manifesto Library was conceived. Created in partnership with Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club, it brings together one hundred books organised around Power, Control, Voice and Memory – titles that challenge ideas, question power and continue the conversations taking place on stage.
Together, the auditorium and the Manifesto Library make this floor the cultural heart of Livraria Lello’s new wing.
Take a seat. Choose a book. Read. Then decide which ideas deserve a place on your bookshelf.
Be part of the new chapter
A new chapter unfolds at Livraria Lello. Nearly 1,000 square metres now reveal new spaces, including the POP Collection, the Manifesto Library and the Ai Weiwei exhibition.
Each floor invites a different pace and a different perspective, where literature, art and architecture meet.
A different way to experience the world's most beautiful bookshop.