That the Plattenbau shelf unit (2004) was recently chosen as “Best of the Best” by the Design Centre of North Rhine- Westphalia, is surely just as much a success factor as the fact that the attractive and endlessly extendable piece of furniture has apparently become a favourite prop of German film directors. It already had two starring roles in its very first year of existence, in the films “Elementarteilchen” (The Elementary Particles) and “Die Wolke” (The Cloud). The Florian Petri shelf with the wonderfully ironic name (“Plattenbau” is a term used to refer to Eastern-Bloc-style prefabricated concrete apartment blocks), which is simply snapped together out of 4-mm-thin high- pressure laminate panels, offers irrefutable proof that, in the wake of hits such as Axel Kufus’ FNP (k p.248) ( 1989), Werner Aisslinger’s Endless Shelf (k p.266) (1994) and Performa’s 03 (2003), the history of the intelligent shelf system made in Germany is by no means over. When the two master carpenters Andreas Kaether and Stephan Weise – specialists in shop fittings who were on the lookout for an additional economic mainstay – offered designer Thorsten Franck some advice in materials in the late 1990s, what resulted was a project for furniture design. Their very first program, Franck’s Build-in-aminute furniture series, attracted attention and even found its way into design museums. Pieces such as the Build-and-file shelf made of wooden poles and coated plywood panels, or the three-legged table trestle Sidestep, made from a single panel (and able to support up to 700 pounds) are paradoxically both incredibly stable and remarkably lightweight, making them ideal for easy transport. This kind of furniture, just the thing for today’s peripatetic lifestyle, stands for a new, unpretentious brand of Modernism. That the pragmatic, ascetic attitude reflected therein can also be found at other companies today, such as Nils Holger Moormann or Jonas & Jonas, who have also done their part in promoting the plywood renaissance, is something the two carpenters from southern Lower Saxony take no pains to deny. They are broadening their product range step by step. It now features a closet and a new idea for the children’s room: “Rutschi”, the portable slide that can simply be docked onto a chair.