© MENDO / Photography: Sophia van den Hoek

Propagating the adage ‘Any great city deserves a great bookstore’, MENDO snugly nestled in Amsterdam‘s labyrinthine inner city almost two decades ago. Founded by Roy Rietstap and Joost Albronda, and currently also co-owned by Gunifort Uwambaga, the store recently relocated to new premises which form part of Hôtel de l’Europe‘s newly opened retail wing. Tongue-twistedly dubbed ‘t Huys, simply meaning ‘house’ in archaic Dutch, the new MENDO store occupies a lofty ground floor unit and has a street side entrance which its shares with other retail businesses in the late 19th century building. Interestingly, the owners fully abandoned the understated, black-hued aesthetic which allowed their former bookstore to stand out and adopted a more swanky bourgeois aesthetic aligned with the design codes of the plush five-star lodgings.

Created by Amsterdam-based design practice Nicemakers, which also happened to revamp the hotel premises, the store mimics a library, albeit a plush one, and sees a homey seating arrangement and single chairs and benches flanked on both sides by floor-to-ceiling wooden shelving and cabinets laden with trophy books. A carefully sourced selection of furnishings, comprising both new and vintage pieces, further add to the sense of domestic bliss. At the centre of the store, below a cascade of suspended lightbulbs, sits a large display table featuring a selection of potential trophy  purchases. As always, MENDO presents a tightly curated selection of visually inspiring titles straddling the fields of art, design, architecture and urban subculture.

MENDO
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 10
1012CP Amsterdam
Telephone: +31 20 6121216
Mon-Sat 10-6
Sun 11-5

© MENDO / Photography: Sophia van den Hoek