Vintage Birillo Bar Stools by Joe Colombo for Zanotta, Set of 4

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).

Design luminary Emilio Ambasz, in 1988, wrote that the history of Italian design “could not be written without referring to [Zanotta’s} contribution.” Aurelio Zanotta founded Zanotta in Nova Milanese in 1954. In the early years, the company manufactured mostly sofas and armchairs that never made it into the history books. In the 1960s, however, Zanotta began working with the most conceptually driven designers of the days—the Castiglioni brothers, Joe Colombo, and Ettore Sottsass, for example—and by the end of the decade, Zanotta has produced some of the world’s most iconic works of postmodern and radical design.

 Among Zanotta’s notable designs from this game-changing era are the plastic-covered Throw-Away Armchair by Willie Landels (1965); the interlocking Karelia Lounge by Liisi Beckmann (1966); the inflatable Blow Chair by Jonathan De Pas, Donato D'Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi, and Carla Scolari (1967); the prefabricated portable living space Guscio Hut by Roberto Menghi (1968); the beanbag-like Sacco Lounge by Paolini, Gatti, and Teodoro (1968); and the poster child for the radical design movement, the Quaderna Console by Superstudio (1971).

In the 1970s, Zanotta began to mine design history for important, boundary-breaking works that were no longer in production. The first project in this vein was the Castiglioni’s Mezzadro Stool, which had been designed in 1957—inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s concept of “ready-mades—but was never made in large quantities. Spurred on by the success of this re-edition, Zanotta followed with more, for example Italian rationalist architect Giuseppe Terragni’s Follia Chair (1934); Italian designer Marco Zanuso’s Maggiolina Lounge Chair (1947); and Swiss architect Max Bill’s Sgabillo Stool (1952). Zanotta would go to re-edition super rare designs by Italian designer Carlo Mollino, as well. 

In the ’80s, Aurelio Zanotta founded Zabro (Zanotta Brothers) with Alessandro Mendini and Studio Alchimia. This experimental workshop aimed to conserve Italian craft heritage while exploring new design languages. This led to the creation of unclassifiable hybrid objects like Mendini’s Zabro Table/Chair (1984), which transforms from a kind of throne into a dining table. Zanotta next launched Zanotta Edizioni in 1989 to answer to a more selective, collector market. Among these limited editions are Bruno Munari’s Singer Chair Object (1945), Mendini’s Colomobio Chest of Drawers (1985/88), and Joe Tilson’s Alchera Chest (1992). 

Today, Zanotta continues to produce many of its designs classics alongside new contemporary designs. The company has over 200 pieces inside the permanent collections of the most prestigious museums, like the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Victoria & Albert in London, the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, and the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein.