Verner Panton

Verner Panton 1926–1998

Verner Panton was born in 1926 in the village of Gamtofte on Funen, Denmark, and is a Danish architect and designer known for his strong personality. He was a one-of-a-kind person with the ability to tastefully and innovatively combine shapes, forms and light in rooms. Panton trained at the Academy of Arts in Copenhagen and worked in Arne Jacobsen's drawing office before setting up his own design studio in 1955.

At Jacobsen, Panton was asked to assist in the production of the now iconic Myran chair. In 1959 Panton launched his first lamp in collaboration with Louis Poulsen, the Topan Lamp. The Moon Lamp luminaire was launched the following year. Panton also worked on complete interiors, often eccentric and colourful.

Experimental forms and materials

Panton began his career as an avant-garde designer where geometric forms and strong shapes played a central role in his design practice. Panton was often praised for his controversial designs and concepts. In 1958, on the occasion of the Applied Art show, Panton exhibited a series of furniture hanging from the ceiling, shocking audiences and critics alike. With the Cone Chair and the Heart Chair, both made of curved metal, Panton began to develop new approaches to the structure of chairs.

Panton always dressed in blue. Blue expresses relaxed sensibility, calm, contentment and confidence; blue symbolises friendship and love. Verner Panton broke all the conventional rules of the Danish furniture design tradition and went his own way. He chose plastic as his primary material and produced several pieces of furniture exclusively in plastic, including the well-known Panton Chair. The chair was designed to give a soft feel. It was initially produced by Fritz Hansen and later mass-produced by Herman Miller. The chair is one of the world’s most famous design classics and is now produced by Vitra.