Like his Additional System and Tube Chair, Joe Colombo’s transformable Multichair proposes a new conceptual approach to the genre of seating furniture. It is composed of two pillows covered in stretch fabric and held together with two leather bands. The Multichair can be used individually or combined in different positions to make chairs, armchairs, or lounge chairs, allowing for all kinds of postures. Colombo’s sketches explored the multiplicity of uses for this object and convinced the manufacturer to break the traditional pattern of fixed, unchangeable furniture. He used the Multichair in his own apartment in Milan in 1970 together with his machine-like piece Rotoliving. This model had a bed on one side and a dining space on the other, which could be interchanged by means of a rotating mechanism. In 1972, Multichair was exhibited at 'Italy: The New Domestic Landscape' at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The initial production series was stopped after a few years in the 1970s. Today, Multichair is produced by B-Line.
Text: Ignazia Favata/Elisabetta Borgatti
