Something Old

i RTW unit
Ron Arad

Working in his medium of choice – metal, and in this case aluminium – Israeli industrial designer, artist and architect Ron Arad designed this open storage unit around 1994. Entitled RTW – Reinventing The Wheel – its multi-compartment shelving system (primarily but not exclusively designed for books) rests on ball bearings within a perimeter “wheel”. While the unit is rolled to a new position in a room, the shelves, and in theory their contents, remain upright. Desirability is fuelled by a unique design but also rarity – relatively few were made before the manufacturer became insolvent. €12,000.
www.quittenbaum.de

ii CSS unit
George Nelson

One of the founding fathers of American modernism, architect and designer George Nelson designed this CSS unit – the aptly named Comprehensive Storage System – in the 1960s. Originally it would have been accompanied by an L-shaped desk designed by fellow American architect and designer George Deaton. As well as open shelving for storage and display, the unit incorporates multiple drawers and cabinets with both wood-veneered and painted doors. Raised on four vertical supports with adjustable feet, it also features a built-in pendant light and the “space age” addition of an integrated clock-barometer-radio unit. $6,000.
www.ragoarts.com

iii Dresser
English

Originally in widespread use, particularly in rural areas, from the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries, dressers were designed with a waist-high flat surface for setting down and preparing dishes prior to serving at the table. All incorporated two or more drawers for dining paraphernalia, most had an under-shelf for open storage and many, as here, were “high” versions with a shelving unit (a “rack”) above for displaying decorative plates, cups and bowls. This fine example is fashioned from solid oak – the favoured timber for English country furniture – and was made in about 1780, in the reign of George III. £3,000.
www.dnfa.com

iv Library selette
Anthony Selmersheim

Fashioned from mahogany, this art nouveau library selette (or stand) is raised on four out-splayed moulded legs united by an X-stretcher. It incorporates an off-set mid-tier open shelf beneath a compartmentalised bookshelf below, in turn, a square top with moulded edges. It was made in Paris around 1900, designed by the French furnituremaker and decorator Anthony Selmersheim, probably in partnership with the architect Charles Plumet. The asymmetry of the mid-tier, the slender, gently curvaceous and almost organic legs, and the sheer elegance of the overall form, are all classic art nouveau. $22,000.
www.macklowegallery.com

v Etagère
English

The étagère emerged in France in the mid-18th century and essentially evolved from small occasional or side tables to which additional tiers (above and/or below) were added. This example was made in England during the reign of George IV. Under a rectangular top with lobed corners and inlaid ebony stringing are two tiers supported by fluted and lappet-carved columns raised on brass caps and casters. Imported from Brazil, the gonçalo alves timber is better known as zebrawood or tigerwood because of its distinctive and highly desirable striped figuring. £4,500.
www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk

Judith Miller is the author of annual antiques and collectables guides for Millers.

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Something New

1 Candy shelf
Sylvain Willenz

One of my personal highlights of this year’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan was a group show of items by young Belgian designers that included Brussels-based Sylvain Willenz, who presented his Candy collection, comprising tables, chairs, lamps and this shelf, all constructed with steel reinforcement bars usually used for concrete structures. Willenz has used a high-gloss polyester coating over the textured steel, an industrial process normally used in the marine industry. Particularly notable is the use of different sections, textures and colours for the three shelves. €2,450.
www.sylvainwillenz.com

2 Double access shelves
Inga Sempé

This shelving has a kind of split-level in which shelves accessed from both sides are placed at varying heights. This irregularity creates a very pleasing visual effect and means that the piece works well as a room divider. Originally developed by Paris-based Sempé in 2007 with VIA (Valorisation de l’Innovation dans l’Ameublement), a non-profit organisation supported by the French Ministry for Industry and financed through a tax levied on French furniture manufacturers, it is now produced by David Design of Sweden. It is constructed of lacquered poplar wood in green or white. About €5,000.
www.daviddesign.se

3 Side cabinet
Simon Hasan

This small cabinet combines the woodland craft of cleaving – where oak is split against the grain (rather than sawn), giving the legs a trunkish look – with industrially welded carbon steel (complete with visible weld lines and a patina left by the heat of the process), the two contradictory elements kept in place with a heavy leather strap. Hasan, a graduate of London’s Royal College of Art, will present new pieces commissioned by the Vauxhall Collective in a show called Craft Work during the London Design Festival later this month. £1,400.
www.simonhasan.com

4 Shelfsystem
Harri Koskinen

The solid oak shelves in this modular shelving system by Helsinki-based industrial designer Koskinen seem to float in thin air. He wanted the focus to be on the shelves themselves, so the supports are made of curved transparent acrylic. One shelf is 240cm long, two is the minimum and you can keep adding shelves to make a room divider. Shelfsystem was first developed as a prototype in 2000 and this year was officially launched in Milan as part of Harri Koskinen Works, several Finnish-made products that the designer is producing and distributing himself. From €3,720.
www.harrikoskinen.com

5 Le cours des choses
Charlotte Talbot

Talbot is probably the youngest designer to have work featured on these pages. She is just 22 and still studying industrial design at Ecal, the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne. Her outstanding work was selected by the prestigious Swiss design school for presentation in Milan, during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile this April. Talbot’s family of objects, including these shelves, is a play on the interdependence of elements and the physical limits of interaction – without the moulded concrete weights, the timber sections would be unstable. Talbot will make these by special order. Price on request.
www.charlottetalbot.com

Nick Vinson is special projects director at Wallpaper* magazine.