Not entirely enthralled

Someone I follow on Twitter is a fan of the design site Inthralld. They often posit idealized or push-the-envelope interiors that take Architectural Digest to the max, and then three steps beyond.

The latest is this book igloo:

It’s an installation using salvaged books, and without any sort of adhesive; so at least no tomes were harmed during its production.

Here’s the thing, though: as with a lot of these Inthralld installations, this one just strikes me as wrong, all wrong. It would not be possible for me to walk into a room with this in it and not start browsing the titles. As soon as I saw one that looked interesting, I’d pull it out of the, uh, installation, and that would be all she wrote.

Know what I mean?

Here’s another: a “dome-shaped bookshelf suspended over home office space”.

It's probably the WYSIWYG in me, but why the hell would you put books in the most inaccessible part of the room, further out of reach than the African masks and antelope skulls? Are you expecting to use the skulls more often than the books? In that case, why even have the books?

And as for having to climb a ladder to get to them—that’s just a recipe for disaster. You find your book, pull it out, and of course you’re going to start reading it before you get to the floor. So, you miss a rung, and there you are, hanging from the damned ladder with a broken leg.

And you’ve probably lost your place in the book, too.

So, no, Inthralld. Just no.