With urban living
space at a premium and
information increasingly
stored on digital devices,
we question whether
the shelf is at risk of
becoming obsolete.
A Closed
Book?
Words
RIYA PATEL
OF ALL THE FURNITURE types, the shelf is the only one
democratic enough to let the user finish composing what
the designer started. While quite a few show-stopping
shelves have passed in review – among which Franco
Albini’s precarious Veliero bookcase (1940) and the
unmistakable Nuvola Rossa by Vico Magistretti (1977) –
they are seldom pieces that make a splash on their own.
An empty shelf is incomplete, and unlike the many arm-
chairs and coffee tables that have reached iconic status,
it retains a humbler, more complex character.
Curating 12 Shelves for The Aram Gallery in 2018
gave me cause to ponder the position of the shelf in
modern life. With photos, books and music all stored on
digital devices, and urban living space at a premium, is the
typology in danger of becoming obsolete? Designer Dean
Brown first asked the question in an earlier gallery show:
Unread Messages (2016). Social Storage was his vision of
a future furniture piece that hooks up to your phone and
displays album artwork, photos and weather information
via integrated mini projectors. The project aimed to make
visible again the traditional markers of personality in
a space: pictures on the wall, CDs on a shelf.
In fact, a CD rack was one of the more ironic
responses to my call for participation in 12 Shelves.
Handmade by Rotterdam-based studio Odd Matter,
which chose grotesque clumps of wood shavings »Silo Studio’s Blash shelves for Pulpo
are made by pouring molten glass on
a table and folding it over the edge
while still malleable.152 LIBRARIES