Joe Colombo, the future won't wait

Joe Colombo (1930-1971) died at 41 after reinventing the furniture of tomorrow in barely ten years. A futurist Italian designer, a painter by training who turned to industrial design, he imagined in the 1960s a habitat that looked like a spaceship: enveloping armchairs, living modules, multifunctional objects. The Elda armchair (1963), a fiberglass shell dressed in leather cushions, remains his absolute masterpiece. Alongside it, the Tube Chair, Multichair, Acrilica lamp: all pieces that invented a future we still haven't caught up with.

The Elda armchair, edited by Comfort then by Longhi, remains the most sought-after vintage Joe Colombo piece. Its spectacular shell and tufted leather cushions make it a sculpture-seat that looks like nothing else. To find for anyone wanting to land a masterpiece of 1960s Italian design.