Shanghai Library East Hall

This guide to Shanghai Library East Hall follows artist Xu Bing's flock of glass birds overhead, more than eight hundred shapes that turn out to be the Chinese character for bird, rendered through his invented square word calligraphy before shifting through older scripts. It traces how the building itself was shaped after a Taihu stone, the wind-carved rocks scholars once kept on their desks, and wrapped in glass printed with photographs of marble. Look up at the third floor to spot where the transformation begins.