606 Universal Shelving System

"At the core of the shelving system is the E-Track that can be attached directly to the wall. Shelves, cabinets and tables are hung from the E-Track by slipping the aluminium pins into place.
Shelves have a second hole so that they may be hung either way up.
If no wall is available, or it is uneven, the E-Track may be attached to the X-Post. The system can then stand on the floor and avoid obstructions allowing it to be installed in many places.
You can easily rearrange your system whenever needed."

"“Design classic” and the adjective “designer” are over-used. But our shelving system is the work of Dieter Rams. He was head of design at Braun from 1961 to 1995 and many of his team’s products have found their way into the collections of the world’s finest museums.

Today he is often cited as the man who created a gentler world – a world to which many people now aspire. We are proud of him and his work – and we are delighted that many respected commentators regard our self-effacing shelving system as a design classic."

Year: 1960
Design: Dieter Rams
Editor: Vitsoe

Eiermann Shelving

"The Eiermann Shelf is one of the archetypes in shelving. Egon Eiermann designed this shelving system for an exhibition in Berlin 1932, named "The Growing House". The topic: build a house that can grow with the family. This project included furniture.

Eiermann’s shelf never went into serial production, although many may recognise this type of shelf from somewhere in their memory. Self-assembly for individual needs. We have developed small details and materials for serial construction and contemporary needs. Stainless steel for the structure. Shelves in solid oak, melamine white or powdercoat white. Up to 6 metre heigh. We added new designed bookends, magazine boxes and a book desk."

Year: 1932

Design: Egon Eiermann

Editor: Richard Lampert

Shelf of Shelves

"A display shelf incessantly displays itself without the participation of decorative objects. With a composition of four independent shelf units of proportionately diminishing sizes, each unit suggests a distinctive content by describing its own space and may be repositioned to create varying configurations."

"plywood, various wood veneer"

Year: 2009
Design: Hans Tan
Editor: the author

Sliding Box

Wall mounted storage box with hidden spring mechanism.

Design: Gitta Gschwendtner

Editor: the author

Self

"Self is a modular shelved display cabinet which invites its user to interact with it. There are only two elements to Self. Its horizontal shelves and vertical dividing walls come in a variety of sizes and colours and can easily be built in flexible configurations and without tools. Self can be closed, open or accessed from both sides and can function as a bookshelf, display cabinet or room divider."

"Being able to assemble pieces yourself often means being able to make decisions, to assess your real needs.
Primarily we’re interested in ease of assembly because it forms the basis of the future of an industrial project. For a set of shelves, for example, this is fundamental in terms of the logistics of manufacturing and distribution. This ease of assembly, along with modularity, opens up an area of autonomy for the user, which isn’t there with pieces that are complicated to build. Simplicity of construction forces you to go back to simple gestures, to common sense, to a universal skill.
The Self shelves consist of plates moulded in ABS and polycarbonate. You put the first plate on the ground, fasten the glass sheets of your choice into its grooves, position the next plate, and so on.
The two carpets also require simple actions: you assemble little units. To get away from the traditional surface of a rug, the Zip uses zip fasteners. It suggests infinite length, the user decides on its dimension and colour composition. The Tapis Grappe is organized by simple juxtaposition. Here it can equally well produce a surface or a path, its perimeter being completely free.
As to the Polystyrene House, it requires no skill in the sense that all the steps required are quite obvious. A priori, it can be assembled by anyone at all, with a minimum of organization."
Extract from the book Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec (2003) released by Phaidon

Year: 2000
Design: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
Editor: Vitra

Wall Shelf

"I drew this series of furniture, for Post Design, with the idea of "background", a structure, or construction, destined to support (on/in) other objects.

Day after day, this furniture acquired a higher level of definition, of sophistication even, while retaining its original force, its simplicity. For some, I used plastic laminate bordered in lacquered wood, to accentuate the sharpness of the drawing. (...)

While drawing these pieces I tried to situate their qualities, their sense, and their beauty perhaps, in their capacity to suggest articulations with other objects, with other realities, rather than in their eventual originality. I tried to think of them as future elements in hypothetical landscapes.

I am more interested in the articulation possible between objects, rather than their individual drawing. I think however, that it is impossible to distance oneself from the requirement of paying a great amount of attention to the drawing of each object.

For me, through experience, and as my thoughts seem to become more precise, even fleetingly, the drawing/design affirms itself more and more as a means to reveal or to name an object, a use, a space...

The series of furniture represents a contribution, a supplementary attempt to clarify, to affirm, to materialize these thoughts."

Pierre Charpin, 1998

Plastic laminate bordered in lacquered wood.

Year: 1998

Design:Pierre Charpin

Editor: Post Design

Paris

"Furnishing is a creative game of possibilities. The shelving unit "Paris" by the London design team of Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby offers plenty of scope to indulge the urge to plag. As the shelves are connected by clip elements which are neither screwed nor permanently fixed, the shelving unit can be regrouped any time with just a few turns of the hand. Thanks to the unusual design, "Paris" has no rear, only fronts and can thus also be placed standing freely in the centre of a room as a room divider.

Three boards in american walnut veneer with variable elements in powder coated steel. An extension set complements the height by one level."

Year: 2004

Design: BarberOsgerby

Editor: Classicon

Fossili Moderni

"Cabinet container in which the objects can be put in sigular "niches" made from the mark that the other objects, intended to vanish or become smaller and smaller as time goes by, left of themselves in a contemporary material. The objects are imprisoned in a rigid polyurethane resin which comes in different colours. Each element is unique and unrepeatable."

Year: 2005

Design: Massimiliano Adami

Editor: Meritalia

Matrix System

"Matrix System, a cabinet system based on the Matrix Cabinets programme. The Matrix System is made from thin standing units with lacquered fixed shelves. This open pattern can be supplemented with lacquered sides, shelves, back panel doors, flaps, and drawers, and/or combined with a low plateau. The system offers a large degree of freedom thanks to the combination of possibilities of open and closed, deep and shallow and can be adjusted and altered in a virtually infinite number of ways. The grips can be positioned both vertically and horizontally."

Year: 2003

Design: Shigeru Uchida

Editor: Pastoe

Open Bookcase

"Designed 1932.

Manufactured by Embru, retailed by Wohnbedarf, chromium plated tubular steel and stained wood, holes in the uprights to fit five adjustable shelves, above bracket feet.

Embru have confirmed that the lot present dates to before 1935 since the use of metal feet signifies the first version as after around 1935 they were replaced with bakelite feet. It is likely that the present lot was a special commission, which are known to have been produced. The standard version has shelves 120cm long which were stained black."

(via: Sotheby's)

Lot included on Sotheby's Fine 20th Century Design auction, 6 November 2008 in London.

Year: 1932

Design: Marcel Breuer

Editor: Embru

Cloud

"A modular and dinamic double-faced bookcase that can be used as a room divider, produced in white, red, light or dark green polyethylene. The elements, manufactured with rotational technology, can be combined together with clips. Also available with internal lightning."

Year: 2004

Design: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec

Editor: Cappellini

Split

"Split uses a simple geometric principle: The inverted angles of a shape split into pieces will always add up to 360 degrees. The angles can be interchanged but will always form a whole."

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Year: 2007

Designer: Peter Marigold

Editor: the author

Paper Cabinet

"Studio Job's Paper Collection, a collection of furniture made from paper, cardboard and papier-mâché, brings back memories of kinder-garden and our first experiences of making things. Inspired by classic icons but manufatured like modern day funiture, this collection is an ode to classical style and to the material. Monumental and light, transitory and timeless."

(via: Style Files)

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Year: 2005

Design: Studio Job

Editor: Moooi

Eames Storage Units

"In 1949, Charles and Ray Eames developed a new system of free-standing multifunctional shelves which - similar to the Eames House that dates from the same time - were constructed strictly in keeping with the principles of industrial mass production: the Eames Storage Units (ESU)."

(via Vitra)

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Year: 1949

Design: Charles and Ray Eames

Editor: Vitra

Juxtaposed: Religion

"5.084.000.000 people 5.360 pages 3.700 years 243 countries 7 books 1 shelf

For the first time, the world's most influential religious texts are brought together and presented on the same level, their coexistence acknowledged and celebrated.

The first in the Juxtaposed series of curated bookshelves designed by Mike and Maaike for Blankblank. Curated by John Simonian"
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"The 'religion' bookshelf is designed by mike and maaike and curated by john simonian. produced in a limited edition of 50 and holding only 7 books, the bookshelf is sure to be a conversation starter. The reason why it will do this is because the 7 books it holds happen to be the world's most influential religious texts. Insets in the wood shelf place all the books at an even level, 'acknowledging and celebrating their coexistence'."

(via DesignBoom)

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Year: 2007
Design: Mike and Maaike
Editor: Blankblank

Shelf

"A basic shape with a strong, conceptual presence: the Shelf bookcase line grows with the addition of new models in different sizes offering greater flexibility and functionality. Unlike the last version, produced in a limited edition of 300 units, the new Shelf models will be produced in an unlimited series in white acrylic resin (natural acrylic stone LG). The proposal includes: two vertical models, a smaller square version and a horizontal model designed to be hung on the wall."

Year: 2006

Design: Naoto Fukasawa

Editor: B&B Italia

Pattern

"I love books very much, the weight, the smell, the haptic", says Haberli. "It is a source of inspiration and relaxation, I love to be surrounded by. I could say I am a book maniac."

"The idea of Pattern is to create a non-horizontal shelf. One which help the thin books or magazines to stay in an upright position. By searching a geometrical figure to repeat, I found an irregular pentagon which adding it to each other creates a Pattern and gives the opportunity of using it for several sizes."

"Meanwhile there is an horizontal surface which allows arranging objects on it. Not having a real back, it can be used as a room divider."

(via Dezeen)

Year: 2006

Design: Alfredo Haberli

Editor: Quodes

Carlton

"The totemic "Carlton" room divider is an outstanding example of his Memphis designs. Although intended for a luxury market and of fine workmanship, it is made of cheap plastic laminates rather than fine woods. The vivid colors and seemingly random interplay of solids and voids suggest avant-garde painting and sculpture. Yet, typical of Sottsass, underlying the surface brilliance is an entirely logical structural system, of real and implied equilateral triangles."

(via Netmuseum, Metropolitan Museum of Art)

...

Year: 1981
Design: Ettore Sottsass

Editor: Memphis

Books Book Shelf

"The first series of Harry Allen Products is called Reality. The series consists of objects whose form is "sampled" from existing sources. Mr. Allen has long believed that original form should no longer be driving force in design. Reality gives him the opportunity to further explore this idea by borrowing form from the world around him. Using a technique that involves casting polyester resin in highly-detailed silicone molds, Mr. Allen is able to borrow with precision."

Year: 2007

Design: Harry Allen

Editor: Areaware

Book and Shelf

"Book and Shelf is a new project that literally combines books, selected and coordinated by book curator Haba Yoshitaka's firm Bach, with a shelf created especially for them by nendo. "book and shelf" presents these two as a set, making it easy for users to acquire their own "book collection", and proposing a new model for product sales. For the production system, Haba chooses a layout for the books within the 36-cm-square dimensions of the shelving unit, then we cut, assemble and glue the layers based on these specifications. This allows us to work in a small production run, which preserves the coordinator's freedom to choose different arrangements for different sets of books, and gives the user the feeling of owning an order-made product that works only with the books it contains. When you pull out the metal plate with the brand name, a small pamphlet with information about the books in the shelf appears along with it."

Year: 2007

Design: Oki Sato with Bach (Haba Yoshitaka)

Editor: Nendo

Photo: Masayuki Hayashi (from Nendo's website)