I visit bookstores because I love books, but Giunti Odeon in Florence reached another part of me entirely: the part that believes old buildings can carry their history forward while becoming useful in new ways.
Giunti Odeon is both a bookstore and a working cinema, set within a theater that has shaped Florence's cultural life since 1922. The project preserved the spectacle of the original space—the dome, decorative details, lighting, stage, and sense of occasion—while reimagining much of the auditorium for books, gathering, events, and everyday use.
It is one of the clearest examples I have encountered of why adaptive reuse matters. The building did not have to become a static monument to a past use, and it did not have to lose its identity in order to remain economically and culturally active. Instead, books and films now share the room.
The Building Is the First Story You Encounter
Before you examine a single book, the room tells you where you are. The scale, ornament, balconies, screen, and retained theater seating make it impossible to mistake Giunti Odeon for a conventional retail interior.
The cinema was created inside the historic Palazzo dello Strozzino and opened in 1922. During the recent transformation, restoration work addressed decorative elements, fountains, floors, lighting fixtures, and the magnificent dome. New shelving and contemporary functions were inserted without erasing the original architecture.
That relationship between old and new is what makes the space successful. The books do not disguise the theater. The theater does not overwhelm the books. Each use makes the other more interesting.
Adaptive Reuse Should Preserve Meaning, Not Only Material
When we talk about adaptive reuse, the conversation often focuses on retaining brick, windows, plaster, or other physical fabric. Those details matter, but the best projects preserve something less tangible as well: the role a place plays in public life.
The Odeon was a gathering place built around stories on a screen. Giunti Odeon remains a gathering place built around stories—now on screens, stages, and pages. That continuity is more meaningful than simply preserving a façade while replacing everything that once made the building important.
The project also avoids the feeling that heritage must be experienced at a distance. Visitors are not asked to stand behind a rope and admire the interior. They browse, sit, study, meet friends, drink coffee, attend events, and watch films. Daily use becomes part of the preservation strategy.
A Bookstore by Day, Cinema by Night
The arrangement is both theatrical and practical. Books occupy the former stalls while the large screen and stage remain active. During the day, visitors move through shelves beneath the architecture of the cinema. At night, books and movable elements can coexist with screenings and events.
Public reviews often describe the space as atmospheric but surprisingly relaxed. People read, work, meet, crochet, browse, or simply sit and take in the room. That is an important lesson for any cultural project: a magnificent space becomes more beloved when people feel permitted to use it casually.
The addition of Caffè Odeon strengthens that all-day life. A coffee, meal, glass of wine, film, and book are treated as related ways of experiencing culture rather than separate transactions.
What Giunti Odeon Gets Right
· It preserves the visual drama and cultural identity of the historic cinema.
· It introduces a new use that remains connected to storytelling and public gathering.
· It makes preservation active and accessible rather than museum-like.
· The bookstore, cinema, café, and event functions support different rhythms throughout the day.
· The project demonstrates that a historic building can evolve without becoming anonymous.
What I Took From the Visit
Giunti Odeon made me think about how often communities frame preservation and progress as opposing choices. A building is treated as either frozen in the past or cleared for something new.
This project offers a better question: What new life can grow from the building's existing identity?
The answer in Florence was not to recreate the cinema exactly as it operated a century ago. It was to recognize that the building's deepest value came from culture, storytelling, beauty, and gathering—and then expand the number of ways people could experience those things.
I left thinking about books, but I also left thinking about cities. The places we preserve should not only remind us of what happened there. At their best, they create new memories without severing the old ones.
Giunti Odeon does exactly that. It is a bookstore I would recommend to any reader visiting Florence, but it is also a destination for anyone who loves architecture, preservation, cinema, or the creative repurposing of buildings.
