ORIS: Since this interview is being conducted in connection with your visit to Zagreb and your lecture at the Faculty of Architecture, how would you comment on your work?

Colombo: The basic characteristic of my work is its utter simplicity; among colours, I prefer white. In architecture, I have always tried to leave some trace of colour. A combination of two colours creates two completely different situations with completely different functions. It is precisely the colour that helps us separate the two phases: the cooking – the preparation of meals – and the living. All the rest happens through interaction, composition, decomposition in an extremely simple, almost minimal situation, but not a banal one. Minimalism and banality are two very close and similar terms. Minimalism is a quest for simplicity, but it also cares about detail. Something similar is happening also in the area of design, where irony and memory interweave. My university professor, Castiglioni, has always affirmed – as we find in his numerous projects – the concept of memory, irony and colour, and they are the basic subjects of my work too. The simplicity and the force of materials are identified as clear signs in all my works. The matter changes depending on interaction, on volumes in space, which is intrinsic of architecture but also of design. And that’s the whole point!