Like any number of Euro-Hipsters intent on staying in verse with the pop-cultural fluctuations of the good old U.S.A., German designer Nils Holger Moormann has done his duty. At least, that is, when it comes to the pervasive influence of the 1960s. Therewith, his latest inspiration—a divan/bookcase/cart, if you can believe such a thing—named after that seminal buddy/road pic and ambitious political treatise, Easy Rider.

Easy Reader. Designed by Nils Holger Moormann.

With a double wink and a nudge, Moormann has swapped out the “i” for an “ea,” leaving us with the punny “Easy Reader“—the perfect moniker for a furnishing that promises an expansive shelf, a luxuriant if slim-profiled chaise, and a front wheel. And since the motorcycle reference remains a bit vague, Moormann has featured front and center the cover page from Lee Hill’s biographical account of the making of the Nicholson-Fonda-Hopper film. If the locomotor potentiality of the piece still has you a might thrown, perhaps the minimalist verbage on Moormann’s website will help: “Quite simply,” it says, “Load. Sit. Read. Relax.” And if I may, I’d like to suggest a continuation of sorts to these mono-syllabic descriptives: “Remove. Re-arrange. Re-locate.” For this easy portability would seem to be one aim of this ambitious bookcase on wheels, constructed of simple painted birch plywood and what would seem to be the re-purposed front wheel from my childhood tricycle.

On that score, the piece has a somewhat juvenile/unfinished aspect to it—some have commented on its apparent instability and the pressing need for a wheel lock—but in all likelihood that’s in keeping with Moorman’s intent (and it is still in the prototype stage). We’ll keep our eyes out for future incarnations, but meanwhile let’s consider it in its present form: a playful, imaginative piece that’s pop-wise and fun, with a budding functionality on the horizon.