Meritalia®'s anti–coherent essence can embody every object of the contemporary interior, blending radical inspirations of designers with high–quality craftsmanship in experimental forms and concepts. Carlo Contin's Cross bookcase is the perfect example. Taking a traditionally supportive and peripheral object like a bookcase, Contin and Meritalia® have designed an object ready to take centre stage in the room.
The distinctive feature of Cross is its supporting structure: a diagonal cross of two solid wood elements. This "cross" is the structure and essence of the object at once. For this reason it is not hidden or camouflaged by the object’s function, and instead it is brought to the fore, and placed on both the front and back of the bookshelf.
The diagonal cross is a representation of the human body in the act of supporting, blending references between the human measure of the Vitruvian man and the superhuman measure of an Atlas, bearing on his shoulders the weight of knowledge and invention.
Enclosed between the two intersections are extremely lightweight ash wood shelves. Cross can be a markedly stand–alone presence in every interior, but it can also be combined in multiples, exploiting its unexpected geometry to transform any spaces in different arrangements and symbologies.
