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Joe Colombo ''Boby 3'' Italian Portable Storage System for Bieffeplast, 1960s

About the Item

Designed in 1969, Joe Colombo’s iconic "Boby 3" portable storage system was produced by Italian manufacturer Bieffeplast makes savvy use of space with its swivel design. This compact caddy is featured in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but it’s perfect at home in domestic settings, offering ample storage with swing-out drawer trays provide and cubby holes for taller items. A one-of-a-kind piece that will complete a studio or a midcentury office. Measures (cm): height - 74 depth - 41 width - 43 Born in Milan in 1930, designer Cesare Colombo—who went by Joe—was the second of three brothers. His father, Giuseppe, was an industrialist who inherited a ribbon factory and turned it into an electrical conductor manufacturer. Colombo came to design relatively late, having spent most of his twenties pursuing painting and sculpture. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Brera, Milan, in the early 1950s. While there, he joined the Movimento Nucleare, an avant-garde art movement founded by Enrico Baj and Sergio Dangelo in 1951. Spurred on by international anxiety surrounding the nuclear bomb, this group of painters aimed to break free of the static boundaries of traditional painting. In 1953, Colombo made his first foray into design by creating a decorative ceiling for a Milan jazz club. In 1954, he made a series of television shrines for the Milan Trienniale. Inspired by these experiences, Colombo enrolled as an architecture student at Milan Polytechnic. When his father became ill in 1958, Colombo abandoned painting altogether; he and his younger brother, Gianni, took over the family business, using the factory as an experimental space for the latest production techniques and materials, including fiberglass, PVC, and polyethylene. In 1962, Colombo opened a design studio in Milan, from which he worked primarily on architectural commissions—including several ski lodges and mountain hotels—as well as product design. His furniture designs were characterized by optimistically bold, round forms, and he championed the notion of using modern technologies to create new design solutions. Colombo’s design career was cut tragically short in 1971 when he died of heart failure at age 41. However, he was remarkably prolific during his near decade as a designer. Notable projects include some of the most iconic designs of the 1960s, such as his 1963 Elda Armchair, made completely of fiberglass; the 1964 Ragno outdoor light, which doubled as a seat; the stackable Universale chair (1965/67), which came in varying heights and was created completely from polypropylene; his 1967 modular furniture series known as the Additional Living System, which was composed of different-size curved pieces that could be pinned together in various configurations to form chairs, sofas, or entire living areas, and which ultimately included the famous 1969 Tubo lounge chair; and the Optic alarm clock and Bobby trolley (both 1970).

Creator:

Bieffeplast (Manufacturer),Joe Colombo (Designer)

Dimensions:

Height: 29.14 in (74 cm)Width: 16.54 in (42 cm)Depth: 16.93 in (43 cm)

Style:

Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Plastic

Place of Origin:

Italy

Period:

1960-1969

Date of Manufacture:

1969

Condition:

Wear consistent with age and use. Minor losses.

Seller Location:

Roma, IT

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU3067322837022

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Shop All Joe Colombo

Joe Colombo

He died tragically young, and his career as a designer lasted little more than 10 years. But through the 1960s, Joe Colombo proved himself one of the field’s most provocative and original thinkers, and he produced a remarkably large array of innovative furniture, lighting and product designs. Even today, the creations of Joe Colombo have the power to surprise.

Cesare “Joe” Colombo was born in Milan, the son of an electrical-components manufacturer. He was a creative child — he loved to build huge structures from Meccano pieces — and in college he studied painting and sculpture before switching to architecture. In the early 1950s, Colombo made and exhibited paintings and sculptures as part of an art movement that responded to the new Nuclear Age, and futuristic thinking would inform his entire career. He took up design not long after his father fell ill in 1958, and he and his brother, Gianni, were called upon to run the family company. Colombo expanded the business to include the making of plastics — a primary material in almost all his later designs. One of his first, made in collaboration with his brother, was the Acrilica table lamp (1962), composed of a wave-shaped piece of clear acrylic resin that diffused light cast by a bulb concealed in the lamp’s metal base. A year later, Colombo produced his best-known furniture design, the Elda armchair (1963): a modernist wingback chair with a womb-like plastic frame upholstered in thick leather pads.

Portability and adaptability were keynotes of many Colombo designs, made for a more mobile society in which people would take their living environments with them. One of his most striking pieces is the Tube chair (1969). It comprises four foam-padded plastic cylinders that fit inside one another. The components, which are held together by metal clips, can be configured in a variety of seating shapes. Tube chairs generally sell for about $9,000 in good condition; Elda chairs for about $7,000. A small Colombo design such as the plastic Boby trolley — an office organizer on wheels, designed in 1970 — is priced in the range of $700. As Colombo intended, his designs are best suited to a modern decor. As you see on 1stDibs, if your tastes run to sleek, glossy Space Age looks, the work of Joe Colombo offers you a myriad of choices.