Biography of Joe Colombo

Cesare "Joe" Colombo was born on July 30, 1930 in Milan, Italy. Colombo was born on that historic day when the hosts Uruguay beat the Argentine national soccer team 4-2 in the final of the first soccer World Cup in history to become world champions. But it is also the year after the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression with all its hardships and privations, into which little Cesare is born.

It is therefore no surprise that Cesare, who would later call himself Joe, would develop a taste for good food, fast cars and fine clothes as a result of this hardship. He spends his free time skiing with friends, playing jazz music and going to jazz clubs. He mixed fantastic cocktails and the tobacco pipe, a moralizing symbol of intemperance or vanity in painting, became his trademark. During his lifetime, his reputation as a bon vivant would precede him and Joe Colombo could undoubtedly be described as a dandy, a virtuoso of the art of living and lifestyle.

Gianni and Joe

As the eldest son of an electrical retailer - his brother Gianni was born in 1937 - Cersare Colombo grew up in the initially simple circumstances of an entrepreneurial household in the second half of the Great Depression. For the adolescent Cesare, helping out in his parents' business was a matter of course and when his father died in 1959, the 29-year-old Colombo took over his parents' business and introduced a series of innovations, innovative manufacturing techniques and modern materials. The family stuck together and in 1962, together with his younger brother Gianni, Joe presented a self-developed luminaire that took advantage of the new thermoplastic material acrylic glass and directed the light from the source and emitted it indirectly: the 281 model. table lamp was quickly nicknamed "Acrilica" due to the material used, and is still produced by the Italian lighting manufacturer Oluce today. But 1962 is not only the year in which the Colombo brothers' first product was developed. In the same year, Joe opened a studio for industrial design and interior architecture in Milan. He saw his future in the (re)design of objects and living spaces.

Training and car trade

Colombo benefited from his creative training. He had initially studied fine art, i.e. painting and sculpture, at the Accademia di Belle Arte di Brera until 1949 and then went on to study architecture at the Milan Polytechnic until 1954. Alongside Enrico Baj and Sergio Dangelo, Colombo was also a member of the design group "Movimento Nucleare", a group of artists formed in 1950 in response to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and the arms race between the superpowers USA and USSR. In 1954, Colombo organizes a ceramics exhibition on the occasion of the tenth Triennale in Milan. Following his studies, Joe Colombo earned his living as a sculptor and painter specializing in "abstract expressionism" and occasionally as a car salesman - in order to secure his livelihood.

Rocket-like rise

Colombo's creative period lasted less than a decade, beginning in 1962 and ending in 1971. During this extremely productive period, he produced a series of works, mainly commissioned pieces, as Colombo became a shooting star of the design scene. In the field of industrial design, he created cars, watches and the in-flight service of the Italian airline Alitalia. Abet Laminati, Alessi, Bayer, Bernini, Boffi, Bonacina Pierantonio, Candy, ICF Industrie Carnovali, Kartell, Olivari, Oluce, Progetti, Rosenthal and Zanotta are some of the many clients who continue to produce some of Joe Colombo's designs to this day. B—Line At the end of the 20th century, some of Colombo's later discontinued design classics designs were reissued. Above all the mobile storage "Boby", the "Multichair", both from 1970, the shelving module "Ring" and the Crossed seat cushion, both from 1963, which he liked to use in his Milan apartment. In general, Colombo used his private rooms as Showroom, where he tried out his designs and put them to the best possible practical test.

Design approach and design concept

The "Universale" stacking chair is a good example of Colombo's multifunctional design approach and special design concept. Designed back in 1964, the plastic chair could not be mass-produced by Kartell until 1967 due to the technology required. The stackable chair is characterized by its modular design: legs attached to a basic frame should be individually extendable up to the desired height. In this way, Universale could serve not only as a kitchen and dining chair, but also as a bar stool. The plastic material combined with bold colors and organic shapes such as those used by Colombo are in a way typical of 1960s design. However, the striking shapes and multifunctionality are impressive and unusual. A bed is not just a bed, a shelf is not just a shelf.

Individual needs and changing residents

With "Ring", for example, a single, cuboid basic element made of metal and wood can be multiplied and expanded to create a decorative shelving system. Additional castors give the shelving unit unusual mobility. A completely new approach in the age of built-in cupboards and wooden cupboard walls. The armchair "Multichair" and "Tube Chair" follow exactly the same principle with practically limitless possibilities for use. Colombo saw the living space of the future not as a permanently installed, immobile backdrop but as a multifunctional, interactive unit that adapts to the individual needs of changing residents. In addition to Colombo's own apartment from 1970, it is above all the room installation "Visiona 1" at the Cologne Furniture Fair in 1969 that brings Joe Colombo's visionary utopias to life. Joe Colombo is said to have seen enormous possibilities in the extraordinary development of audiovisual processes and predicted that distances would be of no great significance in the future. According to Colombo, the need to live in a metropolitan area such as a large city would also disappear, as would classic furnishings, as living space would simply be everywhere.

More efficiency - less ballast

Colombo's "Total Furnishing Unit" is shown for the first time as part of the Visiona 1 installation and is also exhibited three years later at Museum of Modern Art New York. Colombo's living unit consists of convertible furniture. At the Visiona 1 exhibition, a television built into the ceiling and a minibar integrated into the swivel walls were added. The "Total Furnishing Unit" consists of furniture that combines various functions in individual units. The result: the furniture interacts with the user, takes up much less space and supports efficient living without clutter. If the elements necessary for human existence could now be planned with the sole requirements of mobility and flexibility, we would create a habitable system that could be adapted to any situation in space and time, says Colombo.

Working nomads and open kitchens

What seemed futuristic during Joe Colombo's lifetime has now become reality: Working nomads who travel the world with little personal baggage and work here today and there tomorrow, mobile furniture that is sometimes used as a bedside table, sometimes as a coffee table or as a shelf in the bathroom, or open kitchens that are adjacent to the living room or even integrated into it - all of these were indeed Joe Colombo's visions.

Driven by work

But Joe Colombo is not just a bon vivant, he is also driven by work. The extreme workload eventually takes its toll and so the personal physician finally advises Colombo to take it easy. On July 30, 1971, Colombo finally goes for a walk. While Colombo was promenading through Milan, he suffered a heart attack. Designer suffered a heart attack. The sudden cardiac death took Colombo's life abruptly on his 41st birthday.

Since then, the Colombo design studio has been managed by Ignazia Favata. The Milanese designer has been Colombo's assistant since 1968. In collaboration with the Italian furniture manufacturer B—Line , Favata launched the "Spinny" and "Spinny Fixed" shelving units for Studio Joe Colombo in 2004. Joe Colombo's works are shown in changing exhibitions worldwide and are part of permanent design exhibitions, for example at Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York, USA.

Cesare "Joe" Colombo died young - but the visionary Designer will live on forever in his designs from the TAGWERC Design STORE.