Ptolomeo Bookcase

Original Ptolomeo is the free-standing bookcase that doesn’t require any further presentation: it is essential, revolutionary, innovative, as sudden as an intuition and as surprising as its success.

Original Ptolomeo is a container that hides its shape to enhance its content, eliminating the “superfluous” to highlight the essential, namely the books. The bookcase is a steel column to which thin shelves, also in steel, are attached. The shelves gradually disappear as the column is filled with books. When it is full, Original Ptolomeo becomes totally imperceptible and it appears as if the books are standing up on their own.

Designed by Bruno Rainaldi, winner of the 2004 Compasso d’Oro, Original Ptolomeo stems from observation rather than from a formal process and translates an idea that is as simple as it is ingenious: turning a pile of books into a design object. A bookcase that is as “banal” as it is bold, so as to become a contemporary icon, a harmonious piece of art. Like all pieces of art, it is autographed on its base with the designer’s signature.

Available in three different heights, Original Ptolomeo rests on a solid base – in stainless steel or lacquered, coordinated with the frame – suitably studied to ensure its full stability.

Slight, tall and essential: it takes up little room and can be placed in any context, from the more traditional to the more contemporary, also thanks to the different finishes (black, white, stainless steel or corten effect) that allow it to adapt to all kinds of environments.

Original Ptolomeo is a tribute to books and to he who history recalls as being the first person to have taken care of them: Ptolemy I Soter, whom we owe the idea, in the 3rd Cent. b.C., of establishing the Royal Library in Alexandria in Egypt.