Raffaella’s sculptured bookcase
A furnishing sculpture which expresses the artistic flair of the homeowner and gives new life to precious family heirlooms
The Inspiration
Raffaella’s bookcase, between natural shapes and contemporary style.
Raffaella is a regular customer, with whom I share a deep love for contemporary art and design. Through the years, I’ve created for her artistic jewelry and one of my first furnishing sculptures: a TV cabinet inspired by nature and trees. When Raffaella asks me to create a bookcase for the hall of her house in Rome, I propose to use the same theme.
My idea is to design a sculptured bookcase with many boxes reaching out towards the ceiling and developing on various heights. I want to create shapes which interweave and contain different objects. It’s a challenging project, whose aim is to express Raffaella’s artistic flair and the story of her family through the use of unique and precious details.
The Making
Iron, golden bronze and natural stones merge into a light and sinuous structure.
]The sketch of the project gives only a hint of the final sculpture, which needs to be abstract and practical at the same time. For this project, I choose to use different materials, textures and colors to give it a modern and versatile touch, which fits into the existing living context.
I start from the base, which leans on a 90 cm high iron box. The box is enriched by jewel handles made with the lost wax casting technique and cast in golden bronze, like my jewelry collections. I then decide to add some Oceanic Jasper stones which resembles Venetian murrine. Going up, the structure lightly develops onto three different levels, each one equipped with irregular iron boxes where the homeowner can place books, vases and her works of art.
To make everything even more balanced and unique, I add two iron circles to each bookcase module, with beautiful mineral crystals at their centers. These minerals have a story: Raffaella inherited them from her great grandfather, the first Italian explorer in Africa, who brought them back to Italy many years ago. To enhance them and to create dynamism, I illuminate the precious crystals with modern led lights. The neon effect is unexpected, almost irreverent and very contemporary.
The Emotion
A unique piece of art, which treasures family stories and shows Raffaella’s personality.
The bookcase is finished: a two meters high sculpture which articulates among empty and full spaces, delicateness and solidity, lights and shades, neon effects. The final result is a showstopper, unique and precious. Raffaella is mesmerized – she discovers the little details of the microsculptures, like the golden bronze Formica tiles which support the minerals, and she loses herself into the dream and the memories evoked by the sculpture.
