Powells City of Books
— — a city block you read your way across.
Not only on a wall.
“A full city block of books in downtown Portland, room after color-coded room. Used and new sit on the same shelf, so a battered paperback can stand next to a first edition. People come for one title and leave three hours later with five. The Rose Room handles fiction; the Pearl Room rare books. Nobody hurries.
Powells City of Books, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Powell's City of Books occupies an entire block at West Burnside and Tenth Avenue in Portland's West End. The flagship is roughly 68,000 square feet and stocks more than a million volumes across nine color-coded rooms. Walter Powell opened the original Portland location in 1971; his son Michael expanded it to the current city-block footprint. New and used titles share the same shelves, a practice Powell's has kept since the start. The Pearl Room houses rare and collectible books behind glass.
The store is open daily, generally 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., with shorter hours on holidays. A printed map at the front entrance keys each room by color: Rose for literature, Gold for science, Blue for history, Pearl for rare. Author events run several times a week in the Pearl Room, often free, often packed. The Burnside flagship is one of five Powell's locations in the Portland metro area; the others sit in Hawthorne, Cedar Hills, and the airport.
The Burnside store rewards aimless walking. Shelves rise high enough that ladders are stationed in several rooms. Quiet conversations happen between strangers comparing editions. The floors creak in some sections; the lights hum low. Staff handsell cards mark recommended titles throughout the shelves. A reader can stand for twenty minutes in a single aisle and nobody asks if help is needed. The store treats browsing as a use of its space, not a delay before purchase.