Joe Colombo

Feature image: Joe Colombo via Italian Design Club

Designers throughout history have constantly looked for new places to make their mark and display their creativity. Some, however, find ways to reimagine things we use that we might take for granted, breathing new life into the mundane. Italian designer Joe Colombo, born in 1930, was inspired by the everyday items used by his family’s business. 

In 1949, he visited the Accademia de belle Arti di Berta for painting and the Politecnico di Milano University for architecture in 1954. Inspired by Abstract expressionist movements and his early painting in Italy, he fostered this inspiration by joining Movimento Nucleare, or the Nuclear Movement, a collective of artists who published a manifesto in opposition to art academia and the rise of geometric abstraction. Their works focused more on abstract expressionism styles. In 1955, he began highlighting his art in Art Concret, a French art magazine that celebrates the geometric, mathematical approach to the arts.

However, in 1959, he left all this to produce electric appliances at his family business. He combined his arts background with his industry experience to redesign his family’s products. In 1962, he continued the momentum of his family’s newfound success by developing his own design lines and architecture projects.

Critics of his work described his style as expressive yet still exemplary of “high design.” Throughout his career, Colombo created several reimagined designs, showing designers worldwide that any everyday object deserves the time and care to innovate and grow so it can fit the world. 

This chair represents Colombo’s merging of ideas from American and Scandinavian design from the 1930s to the 1950s. With a 360-degree rotation, critics describe the chair as “a tool of physical and mental well-being,” highlighting the reimagining of standard design to improve the lives of everyday people. The Elda chair was one of his works that merged functionality with bold aesthetics, pushing the boundaries of traditional furniture. 

The chair is made of interchangeable hollow cylinders, allowing consumers to curate pieces that fit the needs of their homes and styles. They were designed in 1968 but redesigned with different interchangeable parts from 1969 to 1970. It is ergonomic and unconventional, but not inaccessible to everyday households across Europe and the United States. 

His trolley series is described as being one of the most “unusually attainable” pieces of design history. Designed in 1971, this trolley was one of the most influential designs of his career. It honed in on his desire to bridge the gap between the public desire for editorial, unique designs while making his creation accessible to all. It is still being manufactured and sold today, remaining one of the most accessible pieces in design history!

Joe Colombo’s dish lines were some of the first to move away from symmetry in drinkware. His mission to reimagine everyday objects even reached the glasses we use. His drinking glasses have elevated bases separating the glass from the table, much like a coupe or wine glass. The design intended to remove the need for coasters on tables. As condensation collects on the glasses, it moves down towards the center of the glass and drips onto the glass base underneath it. This provided a space for the water to collect while allowing people to hold the glass without warming their drink, keeping beverages colder for longer.

Many of Colombo’s designs were created through the lens of early discourse on technological optimism. Technological optimism is the belief that technology can solve all material problems and progress humanity forward. It is also called techno-solutionism, emphasizing the technology-centered vision towards societal growth and progress. He merged these ideas with his designs by showing how everyday items could still be innovated to revolutionize form and function without separating the beauty of the human touch in any of his work.

Colombo was not just redesigning everyday objects that blend into the backgrounds of our busy and ever-changing lives. He was reshaping the relationship between people and their environments by offering glimpses of the future that were accessible to the masses. This idea was prominent in the 1960s but dwindled out of public discourse in the 1980s with the rise of the Satanic Panic. Even today, technological optimism maintains steady weight in the discourse on the relationships between technology, design, society, and the fine arts. 

Joe Colombo died on his birthday in 1971 at the age of 41. Although his life was tragically short, his influence on the design world is eternal. His work appears in design schools today, and it generates consistent buzz in auction houses. The modular and sustainable frameworks he operated on in his work kept his design human-centered and down to earth.

The art and design world will never forget the impact Colombo’s tragically short career had. The Museum of Modern Art has 14 of his original works on display in their permanent collection. The foundations of his work carried the message that reimagining technology and design can improve people’s lives. It challenges us to rethink how we perceive the world, from the functionality of a single chair to the very spaces we use every day. 

Colombo’s vision was to create beautiful objects and reimagine how we live, interact, and move through our environments. His talents encompassed advancements in space-saving multifunctionality, innovative practicality, and even modular, interchangeable seating. His work today is a testament to his belief in the power of design and technology and serves as a glimmer of hope and optimism for the designers of tomorrow to do the same. 

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