30 of the Most Creative Bookshelves Designs
At Freshome, we try to find things to inspire you and make your home a better place to live. You can find all kinds of stories here, such as beautiful pieces of furniture, ideas for decorating your home, architecture news, home gadgets, tips and tricks for improving your home, and much more. Here is a collection of the best bookshelves we posted during the past year.
The Equation Bookshelf, designed by Marcos Breder, uses the simple idea of organizing objects in a certain order. As you can see, the design is unique, stylish and original. You can put the books that you use most often (or maybe a framed picture) between the (parentheses) — whichever is the focal point of this bookshelf — and then set others between the [square brackets] and the {braces}.
These Folding Bookshelves are really innovative and practical; they let you arrange the books in an interesting way, as you can see from these pictures. The shelves are made of sturdy cherry wood, but they possess the lightness of rice paper; they can be laid down, stood up, turned 90 degrees and used horizontally or vertically.
This multiple-sized shelf design called the Quad Bookcase can store your CDs, DVDs and books all in one clever product. For even more storage space, units can be joined together. Asymmetry in perfect balance!
Da-Eun Song designed this shelf that spells out “shelf.” It has an very original and modern design. You can’t store too much stuff on this shelf, but it is a great way to decorate a wall; put inside only the books and objects you really like.
This design might look cool, but I don’t think you could stay too relaxed in that space, I’d rather sit in a comfortable chair. The Shelves with a Bench was designed by Stanislav Katz, a designer from Latvia.
As you can see from this picture, a whole wall was used for this interesting bookcase. The result is a very interesting bookcase, at least from my perspective.
Storyline Shelf, designed by Frederik Roijé, is an excellent solution for storing your books in a modern way. Sound finds a physical identity in this beautifully crafted bookshelf. By first processing a word into sound waves, the physical shape is then mirrored in powder-coated steel. Appropriately enough, the word that inspired this lovely piece was “bliss.”
Designed by Doris Kisskalt, the FlexiTube is mobile and can be used as a transparent room partition. These tubs roll around, fit into any corner and change into a sculpture of a shelf. The various elements get support through their velvety surface.
Inside each tube is a shelf for storage that serves as a visual horizontal line. The FlexiTube is available in two sizes and can be combined in any number, either lying side by side or on top of each other. Chocks will support your FlexiTube sculpture if you want to set it up without the support of a wall.
The quasi-hexagonal pattern sets apart the Opus Shelving by Sean Yoo. It’s made of “expanded polypropylene,” the same material used for car bumpers and motorcycle helmet. It is light but strong, can be used indoors or outdoors and is 100 percent recyclable. This unit wasn’t designed specifically to be used as a bookcase; we’ve also seen it used for storing wine bottles, children’s toys, CDs, DVDs and records.
The Rolling Shelf is made from individual pieces of wood held together by fabric on one side. This flexible hinge allows you to create some unique shelving options that are aesthetically interesting. The Rolling Shelf was designed by Catherine Greene.
Magnetique Shelf, designed by Nils Holger Moormann, consists of sheet steel and boxes made of FU (birch plywood). The steel can be mounted onto the wall horizontally or vertically. The backs of the boxes have extra-strong magnets so you can stick them anywhere on the steel that you like.
Sticklebook is an innovative design solution to book storage that creates the illusion of a line of books hanging unsupported on the wall. A space-saving alternative to a regular bookshelf, it comprises an aluminum bracket and strip that grips the cover and pages of paperback books. It’s an interesting way to store your books and will make your friends wonder how they’re attached to the wall.
This interesting shelf is called Bookworm. Designed by Ron Arad, the Bookworm shelf is made of plastic that can be shaped into any form desired. Each upright can support 20 pounds, and the shelf can be mounted in a curved design to increase capacity. It is useful for small places, where a traditional bookcase is too large.
The CAVE Bookcase is a shelving unit with an integrated nook for reading. This is ideal for small places, because the nook saves the space used by a chair. The CAVE provides a private reading space within its form, with the seat height just above the floor; it gives a feeling of hiding from others. Books can be stored on both sides of the CAVE, which does double duty as a room partition.
Prove Shelves are designed by a German company named Creosa. The shelves can be used to display your books, CDs or other items in an interesting way. The storage space is limited, but it’s enough to store the most important things.
Italian studio Icon Design Studio offers D-mension, a system of modular racks created by Nicola Zanetti. It is made of steel and aluminum. The units, shaped like lower-case d’s, can be arranged in a staggered, abstract or symmetrical formation based on your personal taste. This shelving system is a great example of modern furniture.
The Brace Case, designed by Ward Huting, is a shelving unit that uses taut cables to house books, magazines and other flat objects at various angles. The modular system enables the owner to decide how to install the cables. The Brace Case is fully customizable; it is clamped between the floor and the ceiling, and can therefore be tailor-made to any room. This might be an interesting approach to storing stuff, but it doesn’t look very stable.
The Ellipse Bookcase has a beautiful design that will enhance the beauty of any room. The bookcase is made of sturdy elm wood and layers of wood veneer; the shelves are covered with unrolled bamboo. If you have a lot of books, this bookcase is not for you; it is for someone who cares more about how things look like than the books on the shelves.
The Skateboard shelf is a piece of furniture that every skateboard lover would think is awesome. Perfect for students and kids, it provides substantial storage space for books, accessories and even skateboard paraphernalia.
The Ceiling Bookshelf is a great idea for book storage if your space is limited. As you can see, a place that 99.9 percent of people don’t use can be used in a very practical way, and it will save a lot of space in any room. The Ceiling Bookshelf is an idea that can be applied easily; but in order to get a book, you’d have to use a chair or ladder.
At first glance, it appears that arranging books on the Lovely Rita bookshelf could be a real adventure. It can be a single shelf or repeated by combining additional units, becoming a bookcase of any desired length. Thanks to its special shape, it allows two different figures to be designed on the wall, according to which way it is hung.
Tonelli Design is an Italian furniture company that specializes in glass, and these glass shelves are characterized by clean lines and a modern transparent design. Designed by Giovanni Tommaso Garattoni, they have different sizes, allowing you to make all kind of combinations for storing books, DVDs, decor and larger items.
Vintage Shelf is an original shelf created by Jaren Goh Design for Munkii. Reminiscent of a classic bookshelf design within a contemporary form, it allows traditional furniture to fit seamlessly into the modern homes of today: a unique combination of the past and the present.
Lodge is a modular bookcase that obtains a high degree of personalization, since it is formed of blocks of equal height that allow a free composition. It offers a variety of compartments and is suitable for not only books, but also decorative pieces. It also can be used as a room partition.
The Dedalo Bookcase is designed by Marconato & Zappa and manufactured by Porada. The Dedalo has a modern design and can be used as a room divider or placed against the wall. This unique bookcase allows you to store a lot of things in various ways.
This multi-functional shelf design by Yoon-Zee Kim is a playful and creative piece of furniture. You can use it as a shelving system or a seating and a desk. This piece of furniture has a modern look, doesn’t take up much space and is a very clever idea that looks nice.
The Rainbow Bookshelf is a great way to customize your bookshelf with a little bit of creativity — and it’s free and easy to do it yourself! You’ll just have to pay more attention to every book’s cover from now on if you want to reproduce this effect and create your own rainbow bookshelf.
If you are looking for modern shelving, Cosmo Shelves are the ideal solution. These shelves have square and rectangle shapes with rounded corners. They come in black and white, they are easy to mount, and you can arrange them however you want to create a unique art gallery or modern bookshelf.
This Hanging Bookself is an innovative storage design for your books from unal&boler studio unlike anything we’ve seen before. It can’t replace a whole bookcase, but two or three systems could be fun to hang somewhere in your home.
The U Bend Shelf is a great example of an extremely simple design. A single bar that extends from the wall supports your books. The shelf comes in high-gloss powder-coated finishes, and it’s a great way to store books in a small room.
awesome bookshelves………
Most of those designs suffer from the problem of too much form with little attention to function. They mostly look great, but many of them are highly impractical solutions to the problem of book storage and display. Some of them will even damage your book collection over time. I do like the creative thinking involved though, and with some work many of these ideas could be made practical in addition to stylish.
+1 to decultured. Most of these are spectacular-looking ways to warp perfectly good books.
Thanks for your post and comment, Michael. This list is great and it’s a 100% match to us here: we’re a “used book store” network (the biggest in Brazil with more than 750 companies and 15 million books), and our name, in portuguese, means “Virtual Bookshelf”, thus you can figure how your list of innovative bookshelves made us happy.
Cheers.
which came first?…the Prove Shelves remind me of the Stacks feature in Leopard.
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i’ve to go with decultured …
i dont think most of ’em are really practical …
Love it, especially the one with the bench. Oh, to be surrounded by books…
these are amazing.
the ‘interesting bookshelf’ wall is AMAZING. Someday I want a bookshelf like that!
All of these designs are interesting, but I’m not sure I’d actually want any of them in my house.
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Great bookshelfs altough I’d want a classic one to put in a study, also use spell check there were a bunch of spelling mistakes.
They may look pretty, but are they sturdy enough?
if the books are not vertically aligned liked in classical bookshelves, it is always difficult to read the titles. You have to twist your neck. Not practical.
I am surprised you did not include these two:
http://www.amazon.com/Conceal-INVISIBLE-BOOKSHELF-floating-shelf/dp/B000VH7C3U
http://www.hometone.org/entry/stack-your-books-on-the-sapien-bookcase/
They are both interesting and far more practical than many on your list.
I love this one!
However, a friend of mine who lives in Italy asked and it is *VERY* expensive…
Oh, those designers! 🙂
Cosmo Shelves are the ideal solution? Are you kidding :)? There is no books that fits there even on demo pictures. Bookshelf should help to store books :).
Actually some of 30 are defenitely created without having books in mind, but to store some other stuff.
+1 to decultured
Only Folding Bookshelves, D-mension and probably Dedalo Bookcase worth some attention.
okay, people…can’t you lighten up and think outside the box a bit? so they aren’t all functional. they are FUN designs and the designers were creative. maybe you should get out more. sheesh!
wow for a book worm like me this is simply delicious
Loved all of them!!!!!!! Very creative and artitist
Some of these are useless… but nice to look at
What a great rebel ideas of great design. I love it so much. It almost change all my design concept and vision. Very creative and artistic!
Very nice BookCases.
Oh yes. Very nice. 🙂
blankblank makes a beautiful bookshelf called “Religion” that would fit this list…
oh wow those are so cool.
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And then we wonder why designers get no respect (…)
These are mostly exercises in self-indulgence that will either damage your books (for the few out there still reading books), frustrate you to murderous despair trying to stack or retrieve anything, and surely turn you into a dizzy zombie from the headaches you’d be getting staring at all those diagonals and visual overload.
As usual, designers gravely underestimate the public’s need for practicality foremost in the objects it buys. Eye candy is nice to have but don’t go call these “innovations”, this world has real problems to solve.
Hey
I love the list.
it is very clever and i like.
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Very Very Nice
wow!
awesome!
simple yet creative.
Very nice …. Tnx
I am sure I am not the first one to ever come up with this idea, but I recently built these, and think they would fit nicely in your list.
The bookshelves were interesting, even if I really wouldn’t want most of them in my house. Needs better use of unison. That one made my brain flinch.
Very interesting! 🙂
I wrote about it.
Simply great and inspiring desings, i was amazed by all collection.
I love the Sticklebook and the Ceiling Bookshelf. I’d love to incorporate these designs into one of my rooms.
Thanks for the post.
The selection of book cases is totally awesome!
Hah, your collection makes a fun post. I’ve written about a couple of those in the past, but I found lots of new ones here I hadn’t seen before. The hanging closet rod shelves are particularly funky, though I don’t know anyone who can afford to give up closet space. 😉
Totally fun to look at! I agree with others that many, maybe even most are impractical and I would never subject my books being stored like that…
…but I really like Sticklebook (similar to the Invisible Bookshelf) and I would store my magazines or “floppy” books on Lovely Rita.
BOO !
Sorry, but these bookshelf designs SUCK !
If any of these so called designers actually cared about books or about paper (and its quite painfully obvious to me that they do not!), they’d stick to designing fluorescent dildoes and mirrored cop sunglasses and disposable plastic forks –in other words, materials that their sensibilities are better suited to comprehend.
again, BOO !
gustave m.
The most god-awful collection of effete crap I have seen in many years. There is nothing there designed by a book lover. Asolutely nothing.
Read gustave morin’s post.
Most creative designs.
Lets review the word design, which stands for purpose and for concept. Now with a purpose in mind a concept thus arises.
What was the purpose here? Certainly not shelving books, and definitely not books you care about. Where those made for “johnny good looks” with all his hip “good for show books” and designers’ “look me i’m different (and quite useless)” aparatus?
Well except a few items here those are not well thought concepts and they dont serve the purpose of displaying books.
Best regards and looking forward to the next brew of 30 of the most creative book benders designs.
Ugo
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the only ting that makes me think wtf is why someone who wants to give the impression that they have taste has david beckhams autobiography in their library….
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Woa! These are some really interesting designs! I wish I had some of these for my Manga collection!
What a tremendous amount of information. I feel you’ve got us all beat when it comes to research. This is a wonderful sight for designers. I appreciate what you’ve given us here.
Michele
I like most of the ideas, they certainly are creative, but I’ll have to agree with others that most aren’t practical at all. I will say, though, whoever posted the link to the staircase, THANK YOU!! I have a ton of books and that is such a fantastic and clever idea!!
wow, this is a great collection of fun bookshelves. 🙂 thanks!
and for those of you complaining about these shelves ruining books, I don’t see how most of these would damage your books; most at least have the option of holding your books upright like any normal bookshelf – I assume those don’t “ruin your books”? And as for practicality…yeah, some of them are less-than-practical, but quite a few are really practical, even more so than a normal bookshelf.
few of the shelves are awesome with gr8 creativity involved.
WOW
love em all !!!!!
this is simply out of this world..great designs
awesome design. i can´t belive it. wunderful and elegant.
simply great.
very nice designs. good work
hi loved the creativity ……loved the one with the brackets n the one with skateboards.great job guys n gals
It makes a great contemporary decore
Wow! these are just great.
They are simple and nice ! thanks
just fabulous.i loved the “shelf with a bench”.
i love the pink
— but it could use more red.. like where i could cut my wrist at. so it blends in with my bleeding heart. kinda with the flow.
These are really cool, I wish I had more space for books…
Amazing bookshelves!! great finds!!
Sure they look pretty, but none of these are by or for people who actually read. Sorry, but functionality becomes the main concern when you have several hundred books and get more every few weeks.
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awesome Bookshelf…, when you have a load of book, I had to make one of this at home…
😉
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these are so cool i wish i could afford to buy ant of these!! 🙁
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I loved a lot of these very creative designs. I wish I had the space for a few of these great pieces.
Truely inspiring.
Enjoyed the different ideas.
I just added your site to my favorites. I enjoy reading your posts. Thanks!
you show some terrific storage solutions. I’ll share with clients seeking something special.
Loved all the designs, very inspirational, thanks
I love modern design. And, while some of the ideas are really intriguing, i wonder about the durability of them long term. Also, how many people will really have a single bottle that sticks up?
Wasn’t it Davinci that said that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication?”
these are very interesting and eye catching i would love some of that stuff in my house
oh my, the equation, how could someone got that idea! brilliant.
Great Site! Personally I love mine old carpet runner. It’s a perfect first impression to friends coming over to my place. And the carpets are very soft to walk on! Never again do I have to sense the pain of walking on glacial stairs in the morning. It also tones down the sound created from walking on it! I extremely propose everyone to get one! It’s also a amazing safety addition to your home. Trust me, falling on a stair with a carpet runner is much more preferable than falling on one without any!
hi loved the creativity
IT’S Really amazing designs & very helpfull……..
i like these shelvesbooks
veeeeeerrryyyy good
Looking at designs like these is really good if you are fabricating a custom bookshelf. A good carpentry facility will be able to create something unique if you show them examples of bookshelves you like.
Some of them could work for me at my place!
creative and amazing ideas but most of them are for less number of books.any way good ideas
Any one of these pieces is sure to stand out in any home. I think my favorite has to be the ceiling bookshelf though. Certainly an anomalous idea!
Inspiring! I loved looking at these amazing bookshelves. The only problem I have is picking my favorite. Thank you for the great post. I look forward to checking out more!
It’s an awesum outrageous designs! 🙂
its very prety Cool man…..
these designs are some what abrurd and some what creative pure art
These are too unigue! I would like to post them on my web site, this would be exactly what the young generation is looking for.
Some creative talent in your office!
Some of these are very cool and unique, going to look into some of them for my new place. Thanks for this, these bookshelf’s are awesome.
Nice designs
shiva shankar madishetti
Sweet! These all look so unique. I would love to have some options with movable units — so to making moving a lot easier!
look cool
This post is a life saver! We are currently renovating our home into a wedding venue but wanted to add some subtle home nuances to the overall motif, and book cases/shelves were our starting point. Found so many points of inspiration from this post!
Inspired ideas. love the sit in shelves
I never get tired of seeing this post
I love the rolling shelf. That is so cool, and the fact that it allows a bit more room for bottles and books to stand really appeals to me. I may be feeling a bit too ambitious, but I have some timber that I’ve been meaning to use. I wonder what kind of fabric they used for the rolling parts, and if I might be able to replicate it.
waw amazing home design
nice a design
Amazing they are. Really good collection. I also stumbled upon this one day: http://geeksnation.org/bookshe…
Those bookshelves were also good, but they were big ones from around the Globe.