Joe Colombo

Joe Colombo was a different designer from others, he did not want to follow the design of that time. He did not want to be famous or get any big awards he just wanted to be distinctive. His interest was in flexibility and multi functionality. He thought that problems could be solved by a design, that makes the human itself in a better mood by admire the design and by making use of it.



One of his products that made me think of another designer is the 4867 chair comparing it with the Panton Chair made by Verner Panton. The 4867 was the result of experiments with new technology and the century-old search for a one piece chair in plastic. As when it came to moulding it had some problems forming this shape, they had to take the forms apart and make the legs separately from its body, the hole in the middle was not there on purpose, it was produced when the chair was extracted from the mould. It has the same elements of the Panton chair the difference is that the Panton was one single mould and it came out good with some different material and experiments. Although it is plastic it looks really comfortable I would not change anything form it, even the hole in the middle that it had to be there on purpose it is simply attractive with the product.

4867 chair

Another product that caught my eye is the Tubo Chair, this chair is designed in a strange way if you see it for the first time u would not notice that it is a chair. This was designed by four tubular tubes that can be arranged to suit each user, it can be functional by putting the tubes according to the situation. Each tube can get loosen by a metal clipper and each element can even be stored inside the other. The chair is made up of synthetic materials, including foam, PVC, and synthetic upholstery.

Tubo chair

Yet, another chair that has the same form of elements is the Elda Armchair designed way before these two chairs I mentioned. It was also named after his wife Elda. This was one of his early work on plastic for large surface forms. The form of this chair looks really ergonomic and it is quite similar to the Ball Chair where it can give u piece and a bit of privacy. This chair can also rotated a whole 360 degrees in both ways. The tubular leather compares to the Tubo Chair and the lower part, the plastic has a similar input to the 4867 chair. As in my opinion these chair look quite amazing but I would prefer to sit on the Elda chair instead of the others especially the Tubo chair it does not look quite comfortable.

Elda Armchair

Reference: 

:Mel Byars and Arlette Barré-Despond, (Year 1999) 100 designs/ 100 years 

Bernard Polster, Claudia Neumann, Markus Schuler  and Fredrick Leven, 2004. The AZ of Modern design