Photo: Jan Is De Man

Street Artists Turn Anonymous Building Into an Amazing Bookcase Illusion

News Art + Architecture
by Eben Diskin Apr 25, 2019

Upon first glance, this building might look like one of the coolest bookshelves you’ve ever seen, but it’s actually one of the coolest murals you’ve ever seen. Street artist Jan Is De Man’s latest creation in Utrecht, in the Netherlands, truly fools you into believing that the side of this building is a three-dimensional bookcase.

Jan Is De Man was asked by the owners of the buildings who are friends of his to create a mural and the artist took on the challenge and added a little community spirit to it — he asked the local residents to suggest book titles to be featured in the piece. Anything was acceptable, except for religious or political works.

The artist told My Modern Met, “We’ve noticed that this project brought people together without pushing it. They met each other through books. Regardless of the differences in cultures, regardless of the differences in political point of views. Regardless of being extreme right or extreme left. Books are magical. They tickle your brain. And everyone can read the same book, but feel something different.”

De Man and his collaborator, artist Deef Freed, wanted the books on the shelves to be as diverse as the neighborhood itself, and ended up representing a variety of literature across eight different languages.

H/T: My Modern Met

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