Cesare “Joe” Colombo was an Italian designer renowned for combining pop aesthetics and high-tech materials with a total or environmental attitude toward design. Colombo anticipated that technology’s profound impact on society would increasingly allow people to retreat to the private spaces of their own homes. More accurate for today than the 1960s, his vision of a modern networked lifestyle was supported by furniture like the Elda armchair, whose cocoonlike seat and swiveling base created an ideal throne for the new citizen, comfortably connected to the world through the television, telephone, and other communication media.