Visiona 2, 1970

Visiona 2 was an exhibition by the textile division of the Bayer chemicals group, which was designed by the Danish Designer Verner Panton on a Rhine steamer as part of the Cologne Furniture Fair. For the 1970 Cologne Furniture Fair, Bayer commissioned the architect and designer Designer Verner Panton to furnish a passenger ship with fibers developed by Bayer, which was anchored at the pier not far from the Cologne Trade Fair at the time of the Cologne Furniture Fair. To this day, this exhibition is known as Visiona 2, a holistic interior design in the expressive furnishing style of the 1960s and 1970s that revels in color and form. Some of the furniture used back then can still be seen today, lights, carpets are still available in the TAGWERC Design STORE.

Bottomless and colorful

"Barbarella" in the movies and the moon landing on the TV news. There was once a time when the future was so close that you could almost snuggle up in it. The magic word in the swinging sixties and seventies of the 20th century was "living landscape", which promised a sensual way of life liberated from all conventions. Polyurethane, polyester and polypropylene were the all-rounders from the chemistry lab that lent technological progress, economic upturn and social change a completely new design perspective: bottomless and colorful.

Space Age style

It would take pages to even briefly recapitulate everything that happened in the decade of the "children of Karl Marx and Coca Cola" between May in Paris and the moon landing, between Carnaby Street and Woodstock, not to say that it all happened in a rush. With unbridled creative energy, everyday culture was pushed up to become an alternative and avant-garde leading medium. Thanks to unbridled technological euphoria, a small portion of Design Utopia even found its way into everyone's home: as sputnik-inspired, round radios, alarm clocks, lights; or as armchair and sofas, whose seat height approached that of a student's mattress and undermined the bourgeois seating façon with casual lounging.

Visiona advertising platform

The design era reached its spectacular climax in the Visiona exhibitions with which Bayer AG caused a sensation at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. Originally, the chemical giant had only chartered the Rhine ship "Loreley" to advertise its bi-elastic synthetic fiber Dralon with a Heimtextil exhibition right next to the Cologne furniture fair. But after the Dane Verner Panton (1926 - 1998) was commissioned with the exhibition arrangement for 1968, the perspective changed at a stroke: with the engagement of futuristic living scenarios that lived up to their title 'Visiona'.

Fantastic living landscape

Visiona 2 in particular, designed by Panton in 1970, became an unconventional furnishing symbol of those years. The well-known photo with a living landscape of warm and cold tones resembles a living cave, full of soft, organically shaped bulges and protrusions from the floor, walls and ceiling. Boundaries become blurred and the interior resembles a hallucinogenic excess, a living cave in which sitting mutates into an experiment. Phantasy Landscape, a fantastic living landscape that completely dissolves the floor, ceiling and walls, classic elements of the room.

Revisiting the Future

In an interview with form's editor-in-chief Gerrit Terstiege, Marianne Panton, the designer's widow, brushed aside any intoxicant assumptions as nonsense. Her husband had simply wanted to appeal to all the senses. The kitchen and bathroom did not seem to be so close to Panton's heart, as these rooms did not feature in Visiona 2 or in Panton's later designs. As is so often the case in design history, no original relic of the Visiona 2 exhibition has survived into modern times - at least not with the widow, who is looking after the estate. So for the exhibition 'Visiona 2 - Revisiting the Future' from February 7 to June 1, 2014 at the vitra Design Museum Gallery in Weil am Rhein, Phantasy Landscape had to be recreated.

Four-dimensional lounge explosion

The Pop Art installation is certainly one of the most unusual relics of contemporary design from the 1960s and 1970s. Once immersed in the boldly mixed color frenzy of warm and cold tones, it can be hard to say goodbye. That's why design specialist TAGWERC is offering all Visona 2 and Phantasy Landscape fans a slimmed-down version for their own four walls: the Living Tower. The living room-compatible version of the Visiona 2 classic offers four seating positions and can be extended as required. So: take off your shoes, open your eyes and ears and dive into Verner Panton's four-dimensional Visiona 2 lounge explosion.