invisible bookshelf  

I don't
know, but I can imagine this effect being achieved with thin steel shelves welded (?) to a back panel that is painted to match the surrounding wall -- something that a local ironmonger could fabricate. . .

I've been grappling for years...
I've been grappling for years with the idea of making a bookshelf out of fishing line... the precise idea bieng that it be invisible...
Problem is, the fittings you'd need to secure it would be too big to ever be driven into a the crappy plasterboard walls of my tiny London flat!

found
just found what I was looking for:
ptolomeo bookshelf by Bruno Rainaldi.
thanks anyway.
http://www.entratalibera.mi.it/

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This might be a side view of a cable (fishing monofilament) - supported wall shelf unit. A full plywood back panel, or just cleats at top, bottom, and each shelf position, well screwed to any stud system I've ever seen, would be sufficient. The lighter the monofilament, the more closely spaced would be the separate vertical strands that run from top to bottom. . .attached to the front edge of the shelves with a screw and washers "pinching" the monofilament carefully (use the "soft" edge of each washer against the monofilament). The angle of the top and bottom segments of this "truss" could approach 45 degrees, I think.

Well,
my typographic "drafting" isn't doing what I intend, but the bottom half of the images above, mirrored in an identical way above, would approximate what I "drew". . .

invisible bookshelf
You can get this at DWR in 2 sizes. http://dwr.com/productdetail.cfm?id=5281
Here is a cheaper variation at Holdeverything.com http://www.holdeverything.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?parentId=HE-SH...

IS
This desire pure modern?sort of the reverse of postmodern/traditional?

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"Invisibility," floating effects, transparency/translucency, suggestion of motion, and displacement (whatever that might suggest) are primary elements of modernism, in my view. The use of glass to allow corners in an interior, normally dark, to instead brighten or to disappear altogether, and/or to allow planes of material to move from "outside" to "inside" and back again, is one of the effects that immediately distinguish modern architecture from all its ancestors. . .