Verner Panton
VERNER PANTON was born in Gamtofte, Funen in 1926. As an architect and designer he worked as an assistant to Arne Jacobsen until 1953 and in 1955 set up his own studio. His eccentricity earned him a reputation as Denmark's most controversial designer. At a furniture fair in the late 1950's his K1 Cone Chair was shown fixed upside down on the ceiling. He also created inflateabe furniture - a transportable, inexpensive plastic house and a spherical house. He also earned a reputation for lighting with an instinct for creating atmosphere.
In the 1960's he left Denmark to work in Paris and Cannes and eventually settled in Basel, Switzerland where his explosive use of colour and bold experimental design - previously seen as preposterous - set a new trend. The International Furniture Fair in Cologne became his showcase and soon Bayer (the German chemicals giant) hired him to show its creative technology to demonstrate the versatility of plastic, polyurethane foam and new synthetic fibres. He responded with the design of the Visiona 2 fantasy landscape for the 19760 Cologne fair. His really big hit, though, was the PANTON chair (1960) - a cantilevered design created form a single piece of plastic. Whilst other designers had attempted this PANTON was the first to realise it and with huge commercial success.
A designer who set out to stimulate all the senses Verner Panton worked with many of Europe's manufacturers including Thonet, Cassina, Royal Copenhagen, Vitra, Louis Poulsen and Fritz Hansen - designing everything from rugs to lamps.
He died in Copenhagen in 1998.
