Componibili Storage Unit

The name promises modularity, and for most of the Componibili family it delivers: rings that stack, rearrange and roll away on castors. The Classic line quietly does the opposite.

Kartell's Componibili Classic is a fixed tower of 32 centimetre ABS cylinders, drawn by Anna Castelli Ferrieri in 1967 and moulded as a single structure rather than a set of parts you assemble. You choose two, three or four elements and that is the shape it stays. Two elements stand 40 centimetres and weigh 2.1 kilograms, three reach 58.5 centimetres at 3.15 kilograms, and four reach 77 centimetres at 4.2 kilograms. Because the base is moulded to sit flat on the floor, the castors Kartell sells for the larger Componibili will not fit it. There is nothing to separate and nothing to lose.

The plastic comes either painted or batch-dyed, and the difference matters over years of use. Batch-dyeing puts the pigment into the ABS before moulding, so the colour runs through the full wall thickness instead of sitting as a skin on top of it. A scuff shows less because there is less underneath for it to reveal.

Kartell's care sheet is short and worth reading: a damp cloth with neutral soap, and no acetone, ammonia or ethyl alcohol, all of which attack the plastic. The same sheet asks you not to stand on it or treat it as a step, which is a sensible thing to state plainly about a cylinder of exactly step height. The two element tower ships from the company's registered office at Noviglio, south of Milan, in a packed volume of 0.043 cubic metres at 2.6 kilograms.