We’ve seen TVs fold up and camouflage themselves in a room.
But Bang & Olufsen would rather incorporate your giant screen into the design of your living room.
Unveiling this week at Milan Design Week, the soon-to-launch 4K OLED Beovision Harmony is inspired by mid-century entertainment cabinets, with the big flatscreen hidden behind wooden blinds when not in use. But when you turn it on, the screen raises into a viewing position and the two front oak/aluminum covers smoothly unfold to the sides. The end result is like a curtain opening and closing at a theater, or as the company suggests, “a butterfly opening its wings.”
It’s part of a B&O’s long history of incorporating televisions into the overall design of a room, which started in 1959 with the Capri series (where the set was built into a then-fashionable teak cabinet) and again in 1964, where the updated Capri TV/radio hybrids were embedded within a cabinet and could be hidden when not in use.
The new Harmony unit was also designed to be your primary sound system; it integrates with multiple streaming services and can connect with up to eight Beolab speakers.
The Harmony will be available this fall for around $21,000.
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