Utrecht

Utrecht's Front Door
Originally uploaded by weheart

After Keirin and a little rest we headed to Utrecht, a used and rare art book store that I have known about for some time.

A couple of years ago I can across Utrecht's site on a quest for a book about Dick Bruna's Pocket book covers. That's when I met Hiroshi Eguchi via email. He hooked me up with the book and a few others. We've kept in contact ever since, so I made it a point to visit his shop, not such and easy task.

We took the subway to Naka-Meguru about 2 hours early since we thought we might walk around a bit.

Small street in Megura Ku

Turns out we needed most of that time just to find the place. You here about tiny shops in apartment buildings, well, this was one.

The Hallway to the Utrecht store.

After trudging about the neighborhood in the rain and asking several people, we found the tiny apartment in a nondescript building. When the door opened and we were greeted by Hiroshi-San's staff, we were instantly in book heaven.

He had amazing things, books from all over the world, and stuff you only see on websites. It could easly be a design books museum. He also pulled out original posters by Celestino Piatti, Wim Crouwel, Armin Hoffman, Dick Elffers and the like. He had so many great books.

Nicole was a bit jealous when he pulled out a couple of scrap books from a trip to Prauge. Some of the most amazing Matchbook, Luggage and Wine labels you have ever seen.

Turns out Hiroshi-San is a busy man as well. He's edited several books and provided content for others. He edited the Japanese version of Paul Rand's Listen Listen as well as some of his own releases through Utrecht.

After an hour of chatting and some great trades (Original Sutnar brochures for some 1950's idea magazines and a bunch of other design swag), we headed out. Hiroshi-San actually invited us back at the end of the week to meet the guy who publishes Glyph books (the original Dick Bruna book I had initially contacted Hiroshi about). Looks like we may head back this saturday.

Nicole and Me in Utrecht's space

Hiroshi-San and Me pose infront of books I'd like to take home.

BTW, Hiroshi-San is one of the most gracious and kind people we have met so far. His staff was great too, they made us a custom Utrecht bag for all of our goodies.

Our Pile of goodness from Hiroshi-San. Some Glyph books and a few vintage IDEA magazines (next to impossible to find in the US. Oh, and the cool little canvas bag they made us.

Next up, a little more on Naka-Meguru