Verner Panton

Dänemark

Person

Designer

Born 13 February 1926 Gamtofte (island of Funen), Denmark Died 5 September 1998 Copenhagen, Denmark Verner Panton studied architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1947 to 1951 and subsequently worked in the office of Arne Jacobsen. From 1953 he worked as an independent architect and designer, travelling extensively throughout Europe and establishing an international network of manufacturers and fellow designers. His first chair designs entered production at Fritz Hansen in 1955. In 1956, he participated in a furniture design competition organised by the WK Group. Many of the models of his later series are based on these designs. In 1958 he designed an extension and interiors for the Kom-igen restaurant on Funen and publicly presented the Cone Chair for the first time. During the 1960s he collaborated with numerous manufacturers in Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, designing furniture, lighting and textiles. From 1963 he worked with Willi and Rolf Fehlbaum of Vitra on the development of the Panton Chair, which was launched in 1967. Among his most significant projects were the Visiona exhibitions at the Cologne Furniture Fair in 1968 and 1970, the interiors of the Der Spiegel publishing building in Hamburg in 1969, a range of hotel and restaurant commissions, as well as his textile designs for Mira X from 1969 onward. From 1993 he developed school and office chairs for VS. In 1998 he received the Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog. Shortly after his death, his final exhibition, 'Verner Panton: Light and Colour', opened at the Trapholt Museum in Kolding. In 2000 the Vitra Design Museum presented an extensive retrospective of Panton’s oeuvre.