Because all the shelves of the bookshelf are inclined, people can easily climb without a ladder, and books of high position can be easily taken out and put in. In addition, books don't collapse when an earthquake occurs.
Shinsuke Fujii Architects
Photo: Tsukui Teruaki
Have you ever thought of going on a literary holiday, travelling to dedicated book towns? Well, you will now. Journalist and author Alex Johnson has written the world’s first directory of paradises of the printed world. Featuring 45 locations in 30 countries from France to Finland, New York to Norway, all illustrated with delightful photographs, there isn’t a place in here you won’t want to visit. A must-have for explorers and bookworms alike.
The modular design allows you to use the single element as a bench for indoor and outdoor use, or a combination of various elements, changing it into a large bookcase. The design is characterized by a series of decorative and structural grooves which lighten the weight of each module.Design: Paolo Ulian + Moreno RattiPhoto: Enrico Amici
Book towns started with Hay-on-Wye; now there are communities around the world that celebrate the written word. In this extract from a new book, the author picks 10 to leaf through – and visit.Read the whole thing at The Guardian.
For readers, there’s nothing better than discovering a bookstore on vacation. Now imagine discovering an entire book town. Yes, book towns are a thing. They are, like they sound, towns filled with bookstores and book lovers and book-related activities. There are more of these than you think there are, and Alex Johnson celebrates them in Book Towns: Forty Five Paradises of the Printed Word. The book is a bibliophile’s dream. Johnson takes readers on an illustrated tour of the world’s most dedicated havens of literature, revealing their history, celebrating authors and booksellers and offering travel tips. In honor of World Book Day, I talked to Johnson about book towns and his own book. You may want to start booking a trip.
"All at once, I’m looking at my parents’ bookcase, circa 1965. I can picture the spine of that book through the glass door, encased in a green paper cover. Sadly, I can’t picture the books on either side of it. Pretty much all of them dated from the same era, when hard-drinking men like John Huston were making movies. I wish I’d taken a picture of those book shelves, but who would think of doing that? They spoke to me of my parents’ lives, their education, and the era which formed them."
The Millions
Sneglen "The Snail" is a spare time project, that evolved from the basic goal of creating a shelf, - to an exploration of shape, abstract recognition, structural feasibility and usability.
Morten Grønning Nielsen
Book towns are a reader’s ultimate getaway destination. From Hay-on-Wye in Wales to Urueña in Spain, Fjaerland in Norway to Jimbochu in Japan, around 40 semi-official book towns now exist around the world. But until now, there has been no complete directory of their location, history and charm. Book Towns takes readers on a richly illustrated tour of these captivating, dedicated havens of literature, outlining the origins and development of each community, and offering practical travel advice. Explore bustling book markets in Kolkata and Buenos Aires, and pop-up shops in old churches, ferry waiting rooms and stables. A stylish and original guide, it is the perfect gift for both book lovers and travel enthusiasts.
Already published in the USA, published today in the UK.
Pier, getting its proportions from Mondrian’s Neoplasticism, gets its name as well from his famous composition “Pier and Ocean”. The sense of fineness and lightness is Pier’s trademark.
105cm x 28cm x 194cm
Designer: Başak Bakkaloğlu
Abra Design Studio
The project started with the thought, “Can a piece of furniture become a library?” In this project, the chair transforms into a bookcase and a library. The moment the user sits on the chair as they store the book that they were currently reading or sit on the pile of books, the surrounding is no longer a bedroom or a living room but transforms into a library.
Yang Si Young
"I am looking in every nook and cranny of the room to find hidden spaces. Under the table, beneath the bed, above the wardrobe ... All the space in the room is completely full of odds and ends. There's no other choice. And I start building my objet like the city's tallest building seen from the window in the room."
White birch, UV gloss paint
540x700x2370 (mm)
SY Design
Book towns are a reader’s ultimate getaway destination. From Hay-on-Wye in Wales to Urueña in Spain, Fjaerland in Norway to Jimbochu in Japan, around 40 semi-official book towns now exist around the world. But until now, there has been no complete directory of their location, history and charm. Book Towns takes readers on a richly illustrated tour of these captivating, dedicated havens of literature, outlining the origins and development of each community, and offering practical travel advice. Explore bustling book markets in Kolkata and Buenos Aires, and pop-up shops in old churches, ferry waiting rooms and stables. A stylish and original guide, it is the perfect gift for both book lovers and travel enthusiasts.
Published today in the USA, published on April 5 in the UK.
An installation in three parts that functions as a connection between two floors while also offering space to work, collect and store.
Dimensions: 98 x 155 x 290 cm
Materials: Steel, oak
Studio Mieke Meijer
What makes a book town?
It can’t be too big—not a city, but a genuine town, usually in a rural setting. It has to have bookshops—not one or two, but a real concentration, where a bibliophile might spend hours, even days, browsing. Usually a book town begins with a couple of secondhand bookstores and later grows to offer new books, too.But mostly, they have a lot of books for sale.Hobart, New York, is a perfect example of how having one bookstore in a small town is nice, but having many bookstores together makes a place special—a destination. Since the 1970s, book towns like it have been springing up all over the world. There are now dozens of them, from Australia and Finland to India and South Korea.In the forthcoming Book Towns, journalist Alex Johnson catalogues these most charming of tourist destinations. He spoke to Atlas Obscura about the pleasures of out-of-the-way places defined by their books.
More at Atlas Obscura
Terreria is part modular furniture and part Italian farmhouse window looking out over the countryside. The single elements can be assembled to produce an infinite number of configurations and exploit the many potentials of ceramic. Terracotta components are available in four different geometric configurations. Blocks are 30.5cm deep, 40cm high and vary in width between 17 and 29 cm.
The apparent rigidity of a modular structure created by the intersection of tubular elements reveals itself as part of a 20 creative project, starting from the logo. The 4 shelves incorporated in the supporting module, with a slight tilt to never drop books, magazines and objects, can be lacquered even in colors different from the structural frame.
Ernesto Maria Giuffré for Meme Design
