"I believe that the common use of the term 'furnishing' for fitting out a new house or flat is no longer up to date. To draw a clearer distinction, it would make more sense to speak of 'interior architecture': the house is then understood as a living space that must be organised and equipped throughout its volumes with elements that are adapted to our needs and in keeping with the times." Joe Colombo, 1965
Joe Colombo – a visionary pioneer
Cesare Colombo, better known as Joe Colombo, was one of the most successful Italian designers of the 20th century. He is also regarded as a pioneer of flexible, multifunctional industrial design and was quick to embrace plastic, which was a new material at the time.
Colombo was born in Milan in 1930 and initially worked as a painter and sculptor before his fast-paced, fascinating career as an industrial designer began. As a painter and sculptor, he was a member of the artists' group Movimento Nucleare, founded by Enrico Baj and Sergio D'Angelo, from 1951 to 1955.
After studying at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and then architecture at the Politecnico, he took over his family's electrical goods business in 1959 after his father's death. Here, Colombo began experimenting with new construction techniques, manufacturing methods and materials such as reinforced plastics.
Revolutionary design concepts
In 1962, Colombo opened his own design studio in Milan, which mainly worked on architecture and interior design projects. Alongside various individual pieces – such as the Elda armchair for Comfort (1963), the 281 "Acrilica" table lamp (1962) and the Spider lamp (1965), both for Oluce – it was above all Colombo's concepts for complete living landscapes that caused a stir.
Colombo's multifunctional living environments can be seen as a symbol of the optimistic, experimental spirit of the 1960s. In a decade when people naively embraced faith in technology and the future, and space travel promised the conquest of distant worlds, Colombo created designs so visionary and utopian that they could have come straight out of a James Bond film.
Cesare Colombo was undoubtedly a child of his time, but also a pioneer. His forward-looking micro-environments – such as the Central Living Block and the Kitchen Box, which he designed in 1969 for Bayer AG's Visiona exhibition, the Roto-living and Cabriolet-Bed units he conceived for his own apartment and, not least, the Total Furnishing Unit – illustrate in a very special way how flexible, multifunctional furniture modules merge into a distinctive "living machine".
Always ahead of his time
But Colombo's individual pieces mentioned above were also ahead of their time – and not only in terms of the materials used. While many designers in the 1960s were still wary of working with new materials, Colombo saw them above all as new opportunities. His No. 4860 stacking chair (1968), designed for Kartell, was the first adult chair made entirely of injection-moulded ABS plastic. Equally innovative, and now a true classic of design history, is the plastic "Boby" storage trolley that Colombo designed (at the time for Bieffeplast), also known as Joe Colombo's Trolley.
Cesare "Joe" Colombo was admired by his colleagues during his lifetime for his creative potential and, even more so, for his enormous productivity. His prolific work earned him not only the respect of experts but also numerous awards:
In 1964, he won 3 medals at the 13th Triennale in Milan, and in 1967 he won the Compasso d'Oro ("Golden Compass"). In 1968, he received his first "Design International Award" in Chicago, and by 1969 three of his objects were already part of the permanent collection of MoMA in New York.
But Colombo was not only a great designer – he was also known as a passionate communicator and showman. He was always elegantly dressed and was rarely seen without his pipe. He gave his audience the perfect image of a "design dandy", captivated by the possibilities of new technologies and by improving everyday life. Colombo died unexpectedly and far too young of heart failure in 1971, but his designs live on to this day.
