Le cose nel design

The book is an object that has been around for a long time. In all this time, it has been ocasionally used as a design object more than a reading material as it is itself. The book has been worn as a decorative item since it is arranged on bookshelves. For many people, is more important to have a bookshelve full of books than actually reading the books. A great amount of families have, in their home, shelves fully stocked, but haven't read every book. This happens because the books in this case are seen as a decorative object, a form of interior design, and for that reason, the purpose of the book - which is to be read - changes to a "bigger" purpose: fulfilling a design need.



The first private bookshelves, when books began to be seen as design objects, are dated from the late Roman Republic, around 30 years before Christ, but furthermore informations about the model or the designer are unknown.







This second approach is known as "Zhuanluntang", a revolving bookcase. This model was one of the firsts to be massively produced and dates from 544. Its designer was from imperial China, and is name was Fu Xi. Descriptions of this revolving bookcases were found in chinese texts from the 8th and 9th centuries. This bookshelves were popularized in Buddhist monasteries during the song dynasty, under the reign of Emperor Taizu who ordered the mass printing of the Buddhist Tripitakascriptures.





We can also find books portrayed as objects of interior design, namely small furniture decorations. There's no stop in the creative of the use of books as art and design objects, and people surely haven't put a limit on their imagination. Below there are some examples of books used in a range of differnt forms: