Varnaparichay, the country’s first integrated book mall coming up where College Street market stood, will be decorated with replicas of some of the great ancient civilisations and seats of arts and learning. Each floor, from second to seventh, will be dedicated to a theme.

“The inspiration came from the Ibn Battuta Mall, in Dubai, which houses replicas of seven civilisations across its seven wings,” says Samar Nag, the managing director of Bengal Shelter Housing Development Ltd. The mall is a joint venture between the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) and Bengal Shelter.

The ground and first floors of the 1.2 million-sq-ft mall will rehabilitate the 950-odd tenants of the market. The book mall will actually start from the second floor of the basement-plus-G+7 structure. The second floor will be themed on the Roman Forum, the centre for commerce and administration of ancient Rome, according to architect Hafeez Contractor, who has created the design.

The third floor will reflect ancient Egypt, “where an independent writing system was developed”. The fourth will replicate Nalanda Mahavihar, the ancient university of Buddhist study in India.

Bengal Renaissance, represented in the ambience of 19th Century College Street, will be the thread on the fifth level. “College Street almost monopolised the administrative, academic and medical spheres of Bengal and represented the cultural capital of Calcutta. We will try to revisit that scholarly vitality,” says Nag.

The sixth level will recreate Montmarte, the centre of artistic life in Paris where artists, from Berlioz to Picasso, lived, worked and played. The Montmarte at Varnaparichay will be a “platform for budding artists in Calcutta”.

The top level will embrace the theme of the British Library, which houses 150 million items in all known languages and formats. This floor will house the book mall’s own library, with a “vast collection” of old and new books, magazines, newspapers, journals, periodicals and old manuscripts, “both in physical and digital formats”.

Construction will start on September 8, World Literacy Day. Bengal Shelter hopes to complete construction of the Rs 250-crore mall in 18 months. “We will try to complete the basement, ground and first floors in 12 months,” says Nag.

Applications for space have come from publishers and booksellers from across the country and abroad, including Harper Collins, Tailor & Francis and Penguin.