Gestalten

When a member of our team went to Buenos Aires for a much-needed blast of sunshine last winter, she stumbled into La Paragráfica, a humble bookstore bang center of the city. Stocked floor-to-ceiling with art and design books, the bookstore is a hub of creative inspiration for Argentina's design community, bringing a global conversation through its hard-to-source material, 95% of which is imported from overseas. Below, we talk shop with co-owner Aquiles Ferrario and – shameless self-promotion alert – just why they carry more than 60 of Gestalten's own books.


When did it all start?

Due to the closure of Documenta in 2002 – which since 1980 had become an icon bookstore in Buenos Aires – as a result of the biggest economic crisis Argentina has faced in history; in 2003 we created La Paragráfica, dedicated exclusively to the diffusion of books and magazines about graphic and advertising design, illustration, photography, space design, textile and fashion design, product design, fine arts…

What exclusive benefits does La Paragráfica offer to its customers?

We simply present an international selection of publications on these subjects, which is unique because of its amount, variety and quality.

Customers visit us in our bookstore and we also visit customers at their work place. We facilitate knowledge and access to well-known work, international up-and-coming personalities and the creative community of our country: 95% of the material we work with is imported directly from Spain, Germany, England, United States, China and Japan.

Apart from offering your titles at the bookstore and when you visit your customers, do you also do it at any special event?

Yes, five times a year: The Buenos Aires Book Fair, each April-May (it lasts 19 days in a row and holds more than a million visitors); BAFWeek: Fashion Fair, in February and August; Trimarchi DG in Mar del Plata, each October, and Urban Art, each June. This year we have been invited to be the exclusive bookstore in two other important events.

Going back to what seems to be the key of your identity: How do you choose the books you import?

This question is particularly good in explaining ourselves. For years we have chosen the books we love. We pay attention to our customers’ eager searches, those where there is not a present object yet; other times, through sudden and unexpected adventures. As Desnos used to say, apart from the call of love we respond to, there is the love we mean to generate.

How did you design your bookstore?

As an exhibition stall, where the visitors feel comfortable, free and assisted. There is a huge empty table in the middle of our bookstore where the visitors are encouraged to take all the books they would like to consult or take a look at. We don’t even make them put them back in their place.

So, which are the books from Gestalten that, both because of your customers’ encouragement or your own encouragement to them, you love the most?

Gestalten is an unusual case. What could possibly be left aside from all its exceptional publications? We are proud to offer no less of 60 different products from Gestalten permanently. The proportion of Gestalten titles we have on sale at the bookstore cannot be compared to the ones from any other publisher houses in the planet. Papercraft, Regular, Boxed and Labelled, Illusive 3, The Upset, Naïve, Space Craft 2, Los Logos 4, Jaime Hayon, Once Upon a Chair, Play All Day, Data Flow 2, Grid Index … Let’s stop here. Each is a promise of happiness – and one that is always fulfilled.