Biography of Verner Panton

Beginning and training

Verner Panton Verner Panton was born on February 13, 1926, in Brahesborg-Gamtofte on the island of Funen in Denmark. At the age of 18, he moved to Odense and served in the military there for two years. From 1944 to 1947, he also attended the Technical School, also in Odense. Following this, he studied architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen (1947-1951) and began exploring color psychology. During his studies, he met Tove Kemp, the architect and designer's stepdaughter. Poul Henningsen Panton and his wife married in 1950. However, the marriage ended after only a year. Their son died young. What remained was her friendship with Poul Henningsen, who remained Panton's mentor until his death in 1967.

Apprenticeship at Jacobsen

At the end of his studies in 1950, Verner Panton joined the architecture and design office of the renowned Arne Jacobsen, whom he had met through his father-in-law, for two years. Tasked with furniture design, he co-designed, among other things, the Ant chair, one of Jacobsen's most famous designs. Years later, he would say of this not always easy time: “The older I get, the more respect I have for Arne Jacobsen, even though I have a different opinion on many things. When you consider everything Arne Jacobsen accomplished in numerous fields, there is no one in the world who can surpass him. Of course, his skill was accompanied by talent, energy, economy, and luck. And perhaps everything was a little too neat. But I have never learned as much from anyone as I did from Arne Jacobsen. Including the importance of uncertainty and never giving up.”

Office in a VW bus

In a VW bus converted into a design studio, Verner Panton and his former classmate Hans Ove Barfoed traveled through Europe for three years. This allowed him to be self-sufficient and directly capture his diverse impressions on paper. Numerous designs for buildings and interiors were created during this time. Panton also immersed himself in the international design scene, meeting colleagues, manufacturers, and retailers.

Start with chairs

Fritz Hansen, the renowned Danish furniture manufacturer, produces Verner Panton's first mass-produced furniture. The Bachelor Chair and Tivoli Chair are launched in 1955. A demountable weekend cottage, which can also be used as a garage, is produced in a small series in 1957. Verner Panton will revise this design twice more, in 1976 and 1979. His first major commission is... Designer The expansion and design of the Kom-Igen restaurant at Langeso Park estate on his home island of Funen. The client was his father, who ran the restaurant as a tenant and recognized and wanted to foster his son's potential. Verner Panton designed the interior using five coordinated shades of red. The service staff's attire was also incorporated into the overall concept. A novelty in 1958: the seating consisted of the Tivoli Chair, by then renamed Panton One, and the Cone Chair. The latter was presented to the public for the first time. As the K series, the K being an abbreviation for Kraemmerhusstole (shopkeeper's chair), the seating caused a sensation and was manufactured the following year, 1959, by the Danish company Plus-linje. That same year, collaborations began with the Danish companies Unika Væv (also Unika Vaev) for textiles and Louis Poulsen for lighting.

Fabric design from Denmark

Starting in the 1950s, the Danish textile company Unika Vaev gave some (Danish) people from the art and design scene an artistic platform to realize textile designs. Gunnar Aagaard Andersen, Nanna Ditzel, Finn Juhl – and Verner Panton joins the ranks. Textile entrepreneur Percy von Halling-Koch (1914–1992) maintained a lively exchange with his designers. For example, he developed the upholstery fabric Hallingdal together with Nanna Ditzel. The fabric consists of 70 percent virgin wool and 30 percent viscose, giving it high durability and color depth. Hallingdal has been produced by the textile company Kvadrat since 1965. According to the Danish company, a large part of its success is based on this upholstery fabric. The fabric is also used in Verner Panton design objects. In the book “Danish Modern: Between Art and Design” by Mark Mussari, it says: “Ditzel joined forces with his Danish design colleagues Panton and Aagaard Andersen and shared with them a boundary-pushing design approach that places modernism back into a contemporary context without abandoning certain approaches to material and function.”

Artificial material and multidimensionality

The first inflatable seating furniture in history was created in 1960. Verner Panton had already explored this concept during his travels in Europe in 1954. Made of transparent plastic, they allow the viewer a glimpse inside. Both the seamless material of plastic and the interplay of transparency became characteristic of Panton's designs.

The Great Love

While on holiday in Tenerife in 1962, Verner Panton met Marianne Pherson-Oertenheim. They fell in love and married two years later in Basel. Marianne, a native of Sweden, already had a daughter, Cecilia Oertenheim, from her first marriage. Two years after their wedding, their daughter Carin was born. The couple seemed perfectly matched and remained together until Panton's death. Marianne and Verner traveled extensively but maintained their home base in Basel. In 1972, they bought the holiday home Kullavej in Hornbaek, Denmark, which they sold in 1993. A year later, the Pantons moved into a city apartment in Copenhagen as a second residence. Marianne was not only Verner's partner but also acted as his ambassador and manager, a role Verner, by his own account, greatly appreciated. They seemed to complement each other perfectly. After her husband's death, Marianne left their shared apartment in Basel and, in 1999, also gave up their Copenhagen home. Marianne Panton: “After Verner’s death, I very quickly felt the need to leave our old apartment. It was far too big for me. In this new apartment, I first had to adjust to myself and my future without Verner. I didn’t know what to do next.”

The Swiss chapter

Their Swiss chapter began when the Pantons moved from Cannes to Basel in 1963. Willi Fehlbaum, then head of Vitra, had agreed to produce the Panton Chair. The move was necessary to prepare the chair's prototype for mass production. One might think that Panton would have been most likely to find a manufacturer in Scandinavia, especially since Scandinavian design was booming in the 1950s and 60s. "But in Scandinavia, furniture manufacturers kept telling us that producing this chair was impossible. Verner, however, believed in it, never gave up on the idea, and found like-minded people at Vitra," says his wife, Marianne Panton. Several more years passed before the Panton Chair Classic was finally available for purchase in 1967.

German craftsmanship

Two years earlier, in 1965, Gebrüder Thonet AG launched the S Chair. The German furniture manufacturer had specialized in the production of furniture – particularly chairs – since the beginning of the 19th century. While the traditional carpenter achieved a chair's shape by sawing, planing, or carving it from a solid block of wood, Thonet achieved this by bending, or deforming, the rigid wood. Made of plywood, Verner Panton had already conceived the stacking chair in 1956. In the same year that the S Chair was finally released, he began designing a modular living system. The system furniture, with its square base, was manufactured by Alfred Kill GmbH and Metzeler-Schaum GmbH and launched in 1967 through the Kaufhof department store chain. The modular furniture, with its brown Perlon upholstery, Orange, Red, Yellow, Blue and turquoise offer almost unlimited combination possibilities – a revolution in the interior design market.

Visionary worlds

Shortly afterward (1968/1969), Verner Panton set another milestone in furniture design with the Living Tower. This sculptural seating element, composed of two components, features a total of four seating levels. Also in the late 1960s, the designer created the exhibition on the Drahlon ship (1968) for the chemical company Bayer at the Cologne Furniture Fair. Until the mid-1970s, Bayer chartered a Rhine riverboat and commissioned contemporary designers to furnish it. The primary purpose was to advertise home textiles made of synthetic materials like Drahlon. At Verner Panton's suggestion, the Drahlon ship was renamed Visiona 0. Visiona 2, In 1970, the kitchen also became Panton's kitchen. As did the newly built Spiegel editorial office in Hamburg (1969). To this day, the canteen remains largely in its original condition. This makes it a unique document of design history. Likewise, the Copenhagen Circus building, built in 1885, whose renovation he oversaw as a lighting and spatial consultant in 1984.

Colors and shapes in flow

Examples include the Varna restaurant in Aarhus, Denmark (1971) and his private villa in Binningen, Switzerland, which he moved into in 1972. The Living Sculpture, which dominates the living room, is now in Centre Pompidou to be seen in Paris, France. Not to be forgotten is the design of the new Gruner & Jahr publishing house in Hamburg (1973). A commission that was similarly extensive to the interior design of the Spiegel building Four years earlier. Panton's predilection for bold colors and geometric forms is reflected in his extensive work as a textile designer. In the mid-1970s, he created a series of textiles with expressive prints. The Grande, Grafica, Casa, Fiori, and Castello collections (all 1975) are a few examples. They were manufactured by the Swiss company Mira-X AG, with whom Panton had been collaborating since 1971. Also in the 1970s, he began his collaboration with the Danish manufacturer Fritz Hansen on furniture such as the 1-2-3 system (1977).

The space age style

It's still 1977. The Danish manufacturer Louis Poulsen launches the VP Europa lighting family, designed by Panton. Its base is reminiscent of the Panthella, designed in 1971. The lampshade, however, is mouth-blown glass. Despite its pleasing shape, it has something extraterrestrial about it. The Pantopendel, developed in the same year, appears considerably more space-age. It, in turn, is based on the VP Globe, which had already entered the design sphere in the late 1960s/early 1970s. The Ellipsen Lamp pendant lights from 1971 and especially the UFO from 1975 also have—as their names suggest—a strong design connection to outer space. Equally daring, because it was unprecedented: With the Ring Lamp (1970) and Spion (1971) wall and ceiling lights, the Dane designed entire rooms. “The main purpose of my work is to challenge people to use their imagination,” says the tech-enthusiast Verner Panton. That shouldn't be difficult for anyone, given such charismatic light sculptures.

Glory and honor

Such creativity and drive did not go unnoticed. In 1979, he received the Møbelprisen (Furniture Prize) in his native Denmark. That same year, the Swiss Furniture Fair honored him with the special exhibition Pantorama. It impressed visitors with its monochromatically staged rooms, each with an object-like quality. In the center of the fabric-lined Blue Room, for example, Panton placed several Living Towers, naturally in the same color. Above them floated VP Globe lamps. Between 1981 and 1986, the designer was awarded the German Selection Prize five times. His virtuoso interplay of color, form, and function was once again evident in the renovation of the Copenhagen Circus building in 1984. Here, Verner Panton advised on matters of light and color. In Offenbach, he shared his idealism as a visiting professor at the Offenbach University of Art and Design.

Development of ergonomics

The 1990s could certainly be described as the era of chair development in which Verner Panton played a significant role. In 1993/94, he designed chairs for the Swedish furniture company Ikea. Vilbert, Constructed from four plates screwed together, the Pantoflex chair was developed in collaboration with Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken (VS-Möbel) between 1993 and 1998. The resulting expertise was then grouped under the name Pantoflex. Based on this dynamic sitting principle, the PantoSwing, PantoMove, PantoFour, and PantoStack chairs were created for various applications.

Life's work and final exhibition

At the height of his career, Queen Margrethe of Denmark awarded the designer the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog for his life's work. Also in 1998, Panton planned the exhibition "Light and Color." The retrospective was scheduled to open on September 17th at the Trapholt Museum in Kolding, Denmark. Shortly before, on September 5th, Verner Panton was tragically killed. He died in Copenhagen at the age of 72.

Panton Point

“People get angry with you if you like colors. They get angry with people with imagination, too. Most want what they're used to. But I have to exaggerate to get my point across,' Verner Panton once said. This may often have led to Panton's designs being considered not timeless. However, his youthful, timeless designs and the great interest in them prove otherwise.