Verner Panton

Verner Panton was one of the most influential designers during Pop Design. In the early 1950s he worked as an associate of Arne Jacobsen where they worked together on multiple furniture designs including the ant chair.

The ant chair was developed after the works by Ray and Charles Eames where sheets of plywood were moulded to form a stackable chair.

Ant Chair, 1952

In 1955, Panton started his own firm where he made a name for himself as an innovative, experimental designer of furniture and architecture. In 1958 he was commissioned to rebuild the Come Again Inn which is located in a Danish Island. For this project, Panton designed an all-red interior including his famous cone chair.

Also in 1955, Verner Panton continued to experiment with the bending of plywood where he came up with the design of the cantilevered S-chair. As plastic was becoming more popular during these days, Panton wanted to convert this "S-Chair" into plastic moulded. 

S Chair, 1955

Panton Chair Classic, 1960

After five years of ups and downs with the experimentation of this plastic curved chair, Panton achieved his goal with the revolutionary the "Panton Chair" in 1960 made in rigid polyurethane foam with a glossy lacquer finish and is marketed under the name of Panton Chair Classic.

Panton's aim for this chair was to create a comfortable chair made in one piece that could be used anywhere. Infact this chair we can still see it nowadays in very diverse places from homes to social pubs to office buildings.

This chair had influenced upcoming artists and designers where they developed the Panton Chair into their own style.

This image shows a part of a tree trunk cut in the form of the Panton Chair with a chain saw. The designer was Slavakian Peter Jakubik who called this the "Hobby Panton Chair".

The design group United Nude have taken a number of recognisable objects and recreated simplified versions including this Panton Chair made up from a series of triangulated shapes.

Verner Panton was not only famous for his chairs but also for the furniture. The domestic landscape was a major theme in the 1960s and this is when Panton created the "Living Tower" in 1969.

It consists of seating places having organic forms and can be used on four different levels as we can see in the images. In this furniture structure Verner Panton had used birch plywood for the understructure that makes it to keep stable and covered with upholstered seats. It is said that the users are impressed by its comfort and by the arrangement of its interior seats encourages communication between them.

Related to the Living Tower is the room installation for Bayer's Visiona 2 exhibition that was held in Cologne in 1970. Panton created a fantasy landscape were the room consisted of vibrant colours and organic forms. In the history of design, this installation is said to be one of the major spacial design of the second half of the 20th century. During this period there was also a controversy about drugs and thus these images can relate to these controversies.

References:

Regency Shop, 2011. Ant Chair. [image online] Available at: http://www.regencyshop.com/p79/Ant-Chair/product_info.html [Accessed 2nd January 2014]

Martin Eidelberg, n.d. Verner Panton. [image online] Available at: http://www.jetsetmodern.com/panton.htm [Accessed 2nd January 2014]

Carnova, 2012. The birth of an icon, Panton Chair - Vitra. [image online] Available at: http://www.miliarredi.it/en/444-the-birth-of-an-icon-panton-chair-vitra [Accessed 2nd January 2014]

dezeen, 2011. Hobby Panton Chair. [image online] Available at: http://www.dezeen.com/2011/01/29/hobby-panton-chair-by-peter-jakubik/ [Accessed 2nd January 2014]

dezeen, 2010. Lo Res by United Nude. [image online] Available at: http://www.dezeen.com/2010/07/08/lo-res-by-united-nude/ [Accessed 2nd January 2014]

Straight & Curved, 2010. Curved Design of the sixties and seventies. [image online] Available at: http://scm-straight-curved.blogspot.com/2010/11/curved-design-of-sixties.html [Accessed 2nd January 2014]

noble visions, 2014. A look unto the incredible mind and works of Verner Panton. [images online] Available at: http://www.thenoblevisions.com/2010/02/a-look-into-the-incredible-works-of-designer-verner-panton/ [Accessed 2nd January 2014]