Bontempi Helena Bookshelf

Sat Nov 22, 2025BookcasesSTEFANIA CRIPPA & MARCO GOTTARDIBlack, White, Grey, BrassB 4 Living, S.p.a.

HELENA BOOKSHELF

HELENA BOOKSHELF

Designed by Stefania Crippa, Marco Gottardi

The Helena bookshelf is a piece of domestic micro-architecture: an object that divides, connects and tells a story. Its oval base – fluid and organic – breaks away from the rigidity of the traditional bookshelf concept.‎

‎The offset vertical supports, arranged in a refined interplay of solids and voids between front and back, create glimpses, visual filters and theatrical backdrops.‎ ‎ Some objects are revealed, others concealed – not by chance, but by design.‎

The eye is drawn through a shifting geometry that changes with the viewer’s position and with the light dancing between the shelves.‎ Ideal as a sculptural room divider in its free-standing version, or as a functional, space-defining feature when wall-mounted.‎

DESIGNER

STEFANIA CRIPPA & MARCO GOTTARDI

Stefania Crippa and Marco Gottardi founded Studio Contromano in 2014, following their post-graduate specialization in Industrial Design at the Milan Polytechnic. Stefania qualified in 2005 and Marco in 2010.

They met while working in Studio Lissoni & Partners, Milan, Italy. This experience was a fundamentally important phase of their training.

It allowed them to hone their design skills and gave them the opportunity to work with some of the most important companies within the furniture sector, with focus on product development, accessories and exhibition stands.

Studio Contromano is a melting-pot of ideas for individual creatives and teamwork, guided by the common factor of well-balanced esthetics.

It can be described as work-in-progress to identify an original and contemporary language that harmonizes esthetic elegance, the research to develop new finishes and the presentation of novel colour ways with the requirements of the industrial production.