Veliero Bookcase
Designed in 1940 for Franco Albini's own Milan apartment, the Veliero remained a private gesture for over seven decades before Cassina brought it into production in 2011. Its name, Italian for "sailing ship," speaks directly to its structure: glass shelves suspended between vertical steel cables held under tension, the whole composition reading as rigging rather than furniture.
Albini's governing principle was lightness, understood not as fragility but as the deliberate reduction of form to its irreducible minimum. He described the result as "unstable equilibrium," a condition in which the piece appears simultaneously architecturally rigorous and almost impossibly delicate. Gravity, here, feels negotiated rather than obeyed.
- Designed by Franco Albini, 1940
- Produced by Cassina from 2011 as part of the I Maestri collection
- Glass shelves anchored by tensioned steel cables
- Available in natural ashwood frame
- A foundational work of Italian rationalist design
Original: $50,979.50
-65%$50,979.50
$17,842.82More Images
Veliero Bookcase
Designed in 1940 for Franco Albini's own Milan apartment, the Veliero remained a private gesture for over seven decades before Cassina brought it into production in 2011. Its name, Italian for "sailing ship," speaks directly to its structure: glass shelves suspended between vertical steel cables held under tension, the whole composition reading as rigging rather than furniture.
Albini's governing principle was lightness, understood not as fragility but as the deliberate reduction of form to its irreducible minimum. He described the result as "unstable equilibrium," a condition in which the piece appears simultaneously architecturally rigorous and almost impossibly delicate. Gravity, here, feels negotiated rather than obeyed.
- Designed by Franco Albini, 1940
- Produced by Cassina from 2011 as part of the I Maestri collection
- Glass shelves anchored by tensioned steel cables
- Available in natural ashwood frame
- A foundational work of Italian rationalist design
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Description
Designed in 1940 for Franco Albini's own Milan apartment, the Veliero remained a private gesture for over seven decades before Cassina brought it into production in 2011. Its name, Italian for "sailing ship," speaks directly to its structure: glass shelves suspended between vertical steel cables held under tension, the whole composition reading as rigging rather than furniture.
Albini's governing principle was lightness, understood not as fragility but as the deliberate reduction of form to its irreducible minimum. He described the result as "unstable equilibrium," a condition in which the piece appears simultaneously architecturally rigorous and almost impossibly delicate. Gravity, here, feels negotiated rather than obeyed.
- Designed by Franco Albini, 1940
- Produced by Cassina from 2011 as part of the I Maestri collection
- Glass shelves anchored by tensioned steel cables
- Available in natural ashwood frame
- A foundational work of Italian rationalist design
