The Bookshelf That Tells You What To Read

Architizer News

The Bookshelf That Tells You What To Read

April 20, 2012

Ethics, Das Capital, The Arcades Project, Discipline and Punish, Of Grammatology, A Thousand Plateaus, Remembrance of Things Past, The Immoralist, Light in August, Life a User’s Manual, Gravity’s Rainbow, Vermillion Sands, Snow Crash, Archaelogies of the Future, Empire, Speculative Realism, The Coming Insurrection.

It’s safe to say that, assuming you’re an architect, many, if not all of these titles have the double privilege of residing in your ‘library’ and not having been soiled by your greasy or glue-ridden hands–i.e. you haven’t read (or finished) them. With all those books, the half-read easily get lost amid the pile of new or unread books, to the point that excavating through them becomes a chore and bother to be alleviated by Netflix instant stream. That’s where the “Transitory Bookshelf” proves its worth.

Designed by Robert Stadler, the bookshelf takes the form of a ‘W’, with two inclined planes balancing books on either end. On one side, you have books labeled “Read!”, reminding you that the volumes placed in this section should be parceled through with time and care; on the other lie those books you have already “Read.”, but which warrant further contemplation and digestion. The composite aluminum frame is sturdy enough to handle all those insufferably oversized “object books” architects never tire of designing or collecting. Whether sleek design will get you to read more is another issue entirely–we expect the “Read!” and “Read.” count to be asymmetrical, to say the least.