Just go up to any night market vendor and say "wo shi da cho gogo."

----I am not responsible for what happens---

i am the big stinky dog?

my mandarin is horrible :(

I am Big Ugly Brother?

umm.. okaaay

I bought a pair of ElC's from a book vendor there (the very rare Miralles issues I might add which I never saw in any library before). He actually came by the studio and sold them to us there but I can't remember the contact info though. The best thing to do would be to find some architects there and ask them. The book vendors track down firms and sell directly. Young Ho Chen's office is right next to an awesome little cafe in the vicinity of the summer palace. If you head to the summer palace, it might be a good idea to stop by that cafe and ask any of the architects and designers that haunt that place, I would also imagine the proprietors of that cafe could point you in the right direction towards book vendors.

Be prepared to spend money though, they typically cost around 50% the cost of a legit copy and the book vendor i had to deal with I could only talk him down about 10 yuan by putting the money on the table and telling him take it or leave it. I tried haggling for about 15 minutes and he would have no part of it.

Not to mention the fact that eventually some of the ink used for the text started to transfer on to the opposite page so the quality may not be that good.

wow, pirated books! The real things only cost $150 or less, I can't imagine you'd save anything when you factor in lugging the thing back.

Software and music I can understand the logic, but books?!

Counterfeit books. That society fascinates me.

i wouldn't even bother to waste money on pirated arch mag, juz flip it through at bookstore and that's all i need to know.

trace, i also find it strange to buy pirated books, but i am also against pirated music also...software, yeah well that i can accept. i am hypocrite - but i know that.

the Miralles hard to find....my local has it in store all the time?!

now that is something good to pirate. Pick up some archinect copies and mail uhm off to your friends please. aka me

and where is your local savedby? I've never seen it around.

I'm not surprised that books are pirated, I'm just surprised that archi books are pirated. I can see where the profit would be in pirating bestsellers, but is there really enough demand for croquis to justify faking it?

the demand is there, i was just as surprised to see this market also when i first arrived. the thought of collecting so many books turns me off though, as that's just more stuff to lug around when moving. so i took the next step. some booksellers who make the rounds of local architecture and design firms also carry the CD's of entire scanned books.

bought a 100 CD collection of various publications ranging from peridicals to monographs for RMB1000 last year and haven't really needed to buy anything after that. will see if i can dig up a contact, its been a while.

hey spaceman - how about the creating possibly the greatest torrent architecture has ever seen :-)

yeah this is crazy.
in the three different offices that i have worked here in beijing there have been old ladies who schlep carts of architectural books around the city and into different architecture offices.
most of the books are just picture books, like the el croquis and sometimes detail mag.
i once went to the one bookstore that i thought was legit, and bought a copy of delirious ny. it came printed upside down.

I've got a pirated Graphic Standards that I picked up in Malaysia for 15 bucks. It's basically a bound set of photocopies. Can't imagine that a pirated el croquis would be of any decent print quality.

Yay for pirated books when alot of books are out of print/production :)

So they are just vendors roaming the streets and stores right? They have no permanent store in China?

El Croquis 139 - SANAA 2004-08 Sejima & Nishizawa is out...try and get that one and have an archinect pirate sale!

wow i love the idea of the torrent!

any tips on where these books might be found, aside from those mentioned?

for a first time tourist to beijing, would their legit bookshops perhaps have these illegit stuff?

i would also love to have copies of el croquis / detail / a+u as they are really really pricey! less heartache when i mangle them if i get the pirated copies...

by the way, any good bookshops in beijing? archi related stuff? something like the "william stout architectural books" of BJ or pageone sort of shop?
thanks in advance!

i think that little old lady could easily be the subject of thesis no.2 :)

...replace the flowers with hot ElCroq's ;)