Boffi Relaunches Joe Colombo's Futuristic Minikitchen

The award-winning Italian designer's all-in-one cube on wheels gets a new millennium upgrade.

by Laura Fisher Kaiser -- Interior Design, 7/8/2008

In 1963, Italian industrial designer Joe Cesare Colombo created a kitchen for kitchen and bath manufacturer Boffi that embodied the era's preoccupation with futuristic efficiency and an increasingly mobile lifestyle. The Minikitchen was a cube on wheels, housing the three fundamental functions -- cooking, storage, and refrigeration -- in less than 11 square feet. Electric powered and made out of plastic-coated wood, stainless steel, and plastic, the minimalist design created such a buzz that New York's Museum of Modern Art added it to its permanent collection.

Now Boffi has relaunched the multi-tasking Minikitchen, trimmed out in Corian and featuring an induction cook top. Like the original, the unit is theoretically intended for small apartments, offices, or patios, although its greatest strength may be its novelty factor.

Speaking recently to a festive gathering of architects and designers at Boffi's new Georgetown showroom in Washington, D.C., Boffi chairman Paolo Boffi fondly recalled his collaboration with the red-bearded, pipe-smoking Colombo, calling him a "revolutionary" and "visionary" designer. His streamlined "systems" were integrated multi-function units, evocative of spaceship cabins and glorying in the use of new materials. Colombo's prolific output in his too-brief career -- he died in 1971 at the age of 41 -- is still influencing contemporary design.

Perhaps best known for his Boby trolley -- still ubiquitous in design studios around the world --Colombo started out as a force in the Nuclear Art movement of Milan in the 1950's. After turning his attention to architecture and industrial design, he opened his studio in 1961, producing such noteworthy designs of the era as the Elda molded armchair, the Acrilica lamp, and in-flight tableware for Alitalia airline. Before his untimely death, he'd won several prestigious design awards including the Compasso D’Oro for industrial product design and -- for the Minikitchen -- the silver medal from product design exhibition La Triennale di Milano.

To celebrate the revamped Mini, Boffi commissioned five photographers and stylists to reinterpret Colombo's project in real or imaginary contexts. Carin Scheve and James Waddell captured the "portable habitat" al fresco in a corn field, on the banks of a lake, and in a plum orchard. 

Graham Hollick and Beth Evans portrayed a play kitchen upon which a chef in sunglasses concocts elaborate burgers. Elisa Ossino and Tommaso Sartori focused on the natural geometry of the piece for enigmatic black and white shots. Meanwhile, Sissi Valassina and Duilio Bitetto put the cube to work, overflowing with cake pans in a sculptor’s studio, while Daniel Rozensztroch and Jerome Galland emphasized the nomadic element, propping the kitchen with culinary implements and ingredients from around the world.

From the whimsical to the literal, they are all interpretations that Colombo himself would have appreciated. He did predict, after all, a future where "furnishings will disappear...the habitat will be everywhere."

From top: To celebrate the relaunch of Joe Colombo's 1963 Minikitchen, Carin Scheve and James Waddell photographed it beside a lake. The Minikitchen in a cornfield, also by Scheve and Waddell.

Photos: James Waddell. Styling: Carin Scheve. Images courtesy of Boffi.