Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Minimal design bookcases: a pleasant contradiction

"Minimal" Italian design bookcases hold a slight contradiction within themselves: if you think about it, a bookcase cannot be by definition a minimal piece of furniture or at least it doesn't completely respond to the widely used standards of this style that has became so famous nowadays.

The main purpose of a bookcase if, obviously, to hold and keep sorted several objects, especially books; but clearly the final effect is far from what we expect a minimal furniture to be. The mere fact of filling and showing objects all at once, transform a design bookcase in something completely opposite to minimal. The only kind of bookcase that may, in a way, elude this concept is a bookcase with doors, but in this case we are also quite distant to the standard idea we have of a bookcase.

However, there are Italian design bookcases that show a minimalist soul, not only in the final effect you will get once they're filled, but also in the very concept of their structural lines. We can call them inherently minimal, because they respond to determined standards and rules.

And which are these determined standards and rules? Well, first of all minimalism needs essentiality, basically only what it's strictly necessary, without frills. For examples clean and regular lines, with a precise geometry; neutral colours, avoiding too bright tones; materials which are either visually light, as glass, or treated in a way that they reflect the environment around and expand the visual space even more.

Chicago glass wall bookcase is the perfect example of a minimal and essential piece of furniture: transparent glass shelves, support reduced to the minimum and fastened to the wall. This bookcase can perfectly be disguised with elegance in the surrounding environment, giving all the emphasis and attention to books and objects.

Fifty modular wall bookcase embodies minimalism in another way: its shelves comes out of the wall like pushed by an invisible hand that also mould them in different shapes. The result is a furniture piece with essential lines and structure.

Dna free standing design bookcase expresses yet another idea; even though, thanks to its evocative shape, Dna gives life to real imaginative and pronounced book combinations, is still in fact composed by essential elements. A central support and shelves at different heights, with reduced and already-established measures. A piece of furniture designed in this way will produce irresistible combinations of order and disorder, that can give to nice houses an unmistakable flavour.

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