Vintage White and White Robo Side Table by Joe Colombo for Elco, 1970s

The product is in good condition with wear and tear from years of use. Please carefully examine the attached images. To talk about Joe Colombo is to recount the brief and intense career of one of the greatest Italian designers, who died in 1971 at just 41 years old. He was a man who strongly believed in the future and, during the pivotal 1960s when the future suddenly seemed close, gave us a unique glimpse of it. Joe Colombo’s future was anti-nostalgic (he probably wouldn’t recognize the 1990s as “the future”), where intelligent technology would aid humans in all activities, laying the groundwork for entirely new living models. Joe Colombo designed entire living spaces, such as the Visiona ’69 for Bayer, an integrated cell defined by different “functional stations”: the “Night-Cell” (bed + wardrobe + bathroom), the “Kitchen-Box” (kitchen + dining), and the “Central-Living” (living room). These functional stations were articulated in both plan and section, as seen in his daily house designs, where floors and ceilings rose and fell in a dynamic flow, with suspended bookshelves and floor-embedded lights. This vision of the future is probably the most well-known and might seem like a sci-fi utopia today, but there was another less analyzed vision, offering single, self-contained elements serving multiple functions. The Mini-Kitchen, presented in 1963 at the XIII Triennale, exemplified this: a plasticized ash parallelepiped on wheels measuring 75x75x90 cm, containing a stove, oven, grill, fridge, compartments for six sets of plates, cutlery, glasses, pots, utensils, cookbooks, a knife holder, a can opener, and multi-functional covers. This idea suggested a future of undifferentiated spaces (a loft prefiguration?) populated by versatile objects serving specific zones. The same concept applies to the famous Bobby trolley (1970), the Elda chair (1970) with its high back defining a specific area, and the Colombo lamp (1972) using a halogen source to create a large luminous island, eliminating the need for walls. Joe Colombo’s work also extended into artistic research, such as the Acrilica lamp’s kinetic and programmed experiences, and scientific research with new materials and technologies, like the injection-molded chair for Kartell (1968). Despite his short career during the “years of power to the imagination,” Colombo’s futuristic products continue to live alongside us, speaking of a better future.