Shop windows celebrating 120 years of Livraria Lello inspired by Italo Calvino's ‘Invisible Cities’
 (1).jpg "Sem pedras não há arco: montras dos 120 anos da Livraria Lello")
To mark its 120th anniversary, Livraria Lello Porto presents an art installation in its shop windows, inspired by the book ‘Invisible Cities’.
Inspired by Italo Calvino's book ‘Invisible Cities’, which marks the celebrations, and the dialogue in which Kublai Khan asks why he only talks about the stones of the arch, to which Marco Polo replies that ‘without stones there is no arch’. This exchange of ideas serves as a metaphor for the transformation of the territory and proposes a symbolic reading of the history of Livraria Lello Porto itself.
The central figure of the shop windows is a bridge, an unmistakable symbol of Porto and a symbol of the connection between past and future, between the visible and the invisible, between the physical city and the imagined city. This bridge is built from blocks that evoke Porto granite — a material that is part of the city's identity — recreated in a light-hearted way, in a deliberate play between solid appearance and illusion.
The book forms the basis of the installation. Not as a decorative object, but as a structural foundation: it is the book that supports the bridge, giving it its origin and meaning. Literature thus emerges as the foundation of the city, a silent but essential element that supports the greater arc of cultural transformation.
This display interacts directly with the commemorative edition of ‘Invisible Cities’, launched as part of the celebrations of the 120th anniversary of Livraria Lello Porto in partnership with Dom Quixote, and with the blue installation that covers the interior shelves. Exterior and interior form a single curatorial gesture, where design, architecture and literature come together in the same narrative.
More than a celebration of the past, this installation is an announcement of the future. A literary arc that opens in 2026 and reaffirms Livraria Lello Porto as a living project — where books not only occupy the space, but sustain the city and reinvent the territory.