• 15 (More!) Unusually Brilliant Book Shelving Systems: Creative and Modular Urban Furniture

    Creative Urban Furniture

    (Check out our complete collection of Unusual, Creative and Transforming Furniture.)

    Lacking some library space in your crowded house or apartment? Our original 20 distinctive ways and places to house your books featured a number of ecological, flat pack, transformable and portable furniture solutions. This follow-up furniture selection has everything from cozy chairs and strange figures to suspended hangers and adjustable modules for you to fit your favorite books into. Whether or not you are already settled on the perfect way to use your living space, we present those designs now for your leisurely perusal as both functional and entertaining pieces of unique urban furniture.

    Chair Bookcase

    The Bibliochaise: This “book chair� simply integrates a series of bookshelves around a place to sit, making it perhaps the perfect reading chair. The shelves come in a variety of colors, as do the cushions. You even have the option of upgrading to leather cushions if you feel a splurge coming on.

    Modular Bookshelves

    Alog Modular Shelving System: Looking to make a visual statement with your bookshelves? You may have found what you’re looking for with this system, which allows you to reconfigure the shelving modules into hundreds of different configurations. This bookshelf is proof that functionality, attractiveness and the possibility of customization are far from mutually exclusive.

    Hanging Bookshelves

    Suspension Shelf: This extremely novel shelf uses a row of straps from which your books hang until you’re ready to pick them. Apart from being extremely interesting to look at, the aligned tops of the books can be used as a storage space of their own. When not in use, the suspension shelf takes up almost no room at all – a practical feature for a cramped urban domicile.

    Artistic Bookshelves

    Geometric Modular Shelving: Somewhere near the zenith of customizable shelving stands these wall-mounted geometric shapes. As you will decide for yourself the nature of their arrangement on your wall, the possibilities are limitless. If you love to express yourself, these bookshelves could be an excellent way for you to personalize the place you call home.

    Rolling Bookshelves

    Rolling Shelves: This extremely useful design allows you to roll away portions of a shelf to accommodate any objects too tall to otherwise fit between shelves. Available in the finish of your choice, these shelves could be made to match any decor and would certainly provide a striking way to store your books along with the occasional vase or unruly bottle.

    Multipurpose Shelving

    Multi-functional shelf: With one simple curved line, this unusual design can outfit your abode with your choice of shelving, a desk or a stool to perch upon — depending on your mood or your greatest convenience.

    Elegant Simple Bookshelf

    UBend: Simpler still than the multi-functional shelf above, the UBend is a simple, single bar. If you didn’t know better, you might mistake it for a towel bar, but the bend in the bar provides a slot for a book to rest, and this book in turn acts as a book end for the rest of your books to lean against. You don’t have to order it in the pictured Punky Brewster color, but there’s something oddly comforting in knowing that you can.

    Magnetic Shelving

    Magnetic Modular Shelving: Truly an eye-catcher, this magnetic shelving is composed of strips of magnetized sheet steel affixed to the wall along with magnetic-backed boxes which can be arranged on the steel in any manner you deem appropriate. Since you can mount the steel — which serves a track for the functional boxes — in any orientation you choose, and you can mount as many strips of steel as you need, the design possibilities are without end.

    Artistic Bookcase

    Cell Shelf: One of the more unique pieces of any kind of furniture you’ll see, lighting will be key if you choose to display this unusual shelving unit. Though it may border on the impractical, these shelves are gorgeous enough that you might not even want to use them to store books.

    Funky Bookcase

    Angled Bookshelf: Leave it to a former aeronautical engineer to come up with this chic and handy twist on a common bookshelf. The slanted shelves render bookends obsolete while the bare, crisp lines ensure that functionality need not come at the expense of form.

    Funky Bookcase

    Stacks and “The City”: These versatile vertical frames are ready to be manipulated to suit your needs. You can lean them vertically, stack them horizontally; by attaching two together, you can even create a free-standing skyline of unparalleled bookshelf majesty. While the utility of these shelves is somewhat in question, their compelling visual nature certainly is not.

    Elegant Bookcase

    Assembled Boxes: Fastened together with two straps, these boxes are each covered with a unique print, creating an interesting, impossible to ignore pastiche effect. Though designs such as these are sure to make the organization of your books something of a confusing chore, the elegance that this shelving unit brings to a room outweighs those considerations.

    Designer Modular Bookshelves

    Budak Modular Shelving: Like a pile of wine glasses or a multi-layered forest, this shelving and seating combination can be extensive as you want it to be thanks to its modular nature. Use just a few pieces for a small shelf or a bedside table (or a bench), or combine hundreds of pieces in the form of your choice to house your entire library.

    Mobius Strip Bookcase

    The Neverending Bookcase: Another conceptual design with limited functionality, this tribute to the infinite is nevertheless sure to amaze guests with its graceful curves and — particularly if they are fans of Georg Cantor’s research on the mathematics of infinity — its philosophical implications. It’s likely to look better on its own than it will holding your math texts, though.

    Transforming Bookcase

    Collapsible Corrugated Shelving: If you’re looking for something that’s both lightweight and economical, you probably won’t do much better than the PLoP! storage and shelving system. Though the standard four section unit is pictured, the PLoP! is modular, which means that you can easily extend it up to twice that size without sacrificing the collapsibility and ease-of-transport which — along with extreme cost-rationality and a low overall resource expenditure — make these shelves so accessible and enchanting.

    Previously: Unusually Brillant Bookcases

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    27 Comments

    • Jujupiter
      June 25th, 2008 at 1:04 am

      Who the fuck buys Jamie Oliver’s books?!

    • Alex
      June 25th, 2008 at 4:17 am

      Your last link (to the collapsible shelving) goes to the same page as the “neverending bookshelf”??

    • Arsis
      June 25th, 2008 at 5:12 am

      It’s interesting that not a single one offers and real storage are indexing options. Sure they all look great but I doubt true book lovers would be interested in any of them.

    • steve
      June 25th, 2008 at 5:51 am

      You forgot the bookcase staircase:
      http://blog.deadlycomputer.com/2008/02/21/1159/
      i love that one

      i think the geometric modular one is pretty interesting too.

      and, @arsis, not everyone is a librarian, some people like alittle variety in their home, instead of a bland shelf in abc order by author by topic. Sure its usefull, but its boring.

    • TSS
      June 25th, 2008 at 6:39 am

      Good finds! I really like the rolling shelving and the angled bookshelf as well.

    • Cam
      June 26th, 2008 at 4:35 am

      Mostly unattractive. And from a bibliophile’s point of view, utterly pointless.

    • jim
      June 30th, 2008 at 8:23 pm

      Cool designs. Haha. He said biliophile. What a dick.

    • Morgyn
      July 7th, 2008 at 2:26 am

      Wow, I love the rolling shelves! And the suspension shelf is perfect for cookbooks…

    • Yaki
      July 9th, 2008 at 8:01 am

      On the same note: http://www.moormann.de/en/moeb.....inist.html

    • librarianlm
      December 16th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

      @steve: Don’t speak for a librarian unless you are one! Fun shelves can be loved by librarians as well. You are confusing librarians with libraries.

    • lisha xx
      February 17th, 2009 at 5:02 pm

      Haha i love these designs so creative!!!! haha im with jim… i mean who says words like bibliophile theses days???? it makes me squirmy hahaha wat a tosser luv all xx

    • nichole
      February 24th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

      The angled bookshelf is perfect for someone who has just enough books to fill it, since all the rest are on my sony reader. It’s TOTALLY functional, and it looks nice and neat. Combined with the color coding system, it could be wonderful.

    • adam leick
      March 4th, 2009 at 9:29 pm

      this stuff is some of the coolest things iv ever seen. it makes me want to quit try to bild uniq things for i dont feel like i will ever get close to being as creative as thes people. AMAZING STUFF

    • shelly
      May 1st, 2009 at 1:32 pm

      these are some of the dumbest bookshelves i have ever seen. Anyone who spends money on such useless and ugly pieces of “furniture”, if you can even call it that, should go get their head examined.

    • oracle-dba
      June 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 am

      great. excellent design tips for me. i will implement them.

    What do you think? Leave a comment!





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