About Consuming Books: The Nijhof and Lee Collection

Described as ‘the best London design bookshop in Amsterdam’, Nijhof & Lee occupied a small corner of the Staalstraat from 1988—2011 and gained a worldwide reputation for their combination of contemporary and historical design publications. This exhibition provides a snapshot into what remained of the shop stock after their closure; graphic design books, magazines, exhibition catalogues, type specimens and self-published work. The collection contains over 3,000 volumes, with a particular focus on typography, lettering, ephemera, printing, and artists books.

The bookshop reflected the knowledge and interests of the owners and life partners Frank Nijhof and Warren Lee and their lives with books. It became the home of many events and exhibitions that explored aspects of design and publishing, furthering this discourse before the widespread adoption of social media. Positioning the material adjacent to the shop at LCBA draws a parallel between the two and celebrates the role of books and independent bookshops in fostering communities. Items from the collection are grouped in a non-hierarchical manner around format and process, allowing work from eminent designers to sit alongside the underexplored and for new connections to be made across time and space.

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