Joe Colombo: A Designer of Systems, Not Just Objects
In the vibrant heart of the 1960s, amidst glossy plastics and dreams of space-age revolutions, one man envisioned the future not as a distant utopia but as a livable, modular, tangible space. His name was Joe Colombo, and his design was never static—it was mobile, flexible, and radical—just like the era that shaped him.
Born in Milan in 1930, Cesare Colombo—“Joe” to everyone—was an explorer of function, a builder of visionary solutions.
His design spoke the language of change. Just look at Visiona 1, the iconic installation created for Bayer in 1969: a psychedelic interior filled with multifunctional capsules and seats that seemed to arrive straight from a spaceship. Colombo wasn’t designing furniture—he was crafting lifestyles.
From the Total Living Unit to the Tube Chair
His world had no fixed rooms, rigid walls, or domestic hierarchies. Everything was in motion, constantly transforming. Proof of this lies in his legendary Total Furnishing Unit from 1972—a “home in a cubic meter” conceived for MoMA. This is an extreme yet prophetic idea, especially today, when the concept of domestic space is becoming increasingly fluid and hybrid.
Colombo was obsessed with modularity. His vision consisted of components that could be rearranged, recombined, and reimagined, like the iconic Tube Chair (1969), made of interchangeable padded cylinders—a pop icon, flexible, and unconventional.
The Boby Trolley: Everyday Design, Elevated
His Boby Trolley (1970), still used today by designers, makeup artists, and tattooists, is more than a workstation—it’s a symbol of how design can respond to real needs with both functionality and style.Joe Colombo didn’t live long enough to witness the future he dreamed of. He died prematurely in 1971, at just 41 years old. Yet his work is still very much alive: in flexible co-working spaces, high-tech micro-apartments, IKEA modular systems, multifunctional trolleys, and in the retro-futuristic sets that shape cinema, art, and fashion.
His legacy is powerful. It reminds us that the future is a space to be designed, not just inhabited. It is a space where freedom and functionality blend and where every object can spark an experience. Joe Colombo challenged the very concept of living, doing so with playfulness, sharp intellect, and timeless talent.
Today, his work feels more relevant than ever. Because, as he once said:
“The future designer will be a global planner, capable of creating complete environments, not just isolated objects, but complex systems.”
And that future—our present—still speaks Joe Colombo’s visionary language.
