Verner Panton

Verner Panton – Colleague of Arne Jacobsen; step to self-employment

Verner Panton was born on 13 February 1926 in Gamtofte on the Danish island of Fünen. Following military service, he attended the Technical University from 1944 to 1947, and then studied architecture at the Royal Art Academy in Copenhagen. In 1950, he entered into a short-lived marriage with Tove Kemo, the stepdaughter of the influential Danish designer Paoul Henningsen and that same year, Panton started work in the office of the Danish star architect Arne Jacobsen, whom he helped with the design of the famous ‘Ant’ chair. Panton recognised that his preference for soft forms and natural materials clearly set him apart from the prevailing practices, and he left Jacobsen’s studio to work on his own. Panton converted his VW bus into a mobile drawing office and travelled Europe, gathering many stimuli, and making important contacts with colleagues and dealers. It was a fruitful period in which Panton created numerous designs and concepts. 

Collaboration with Fritz Hansen, Lus-Linje and Lois Poulsen

Verner Panton opened his own design studio in 1955 and was able to convince the renowned Danish furniture manufacturer Fritz Hansen to produce his ‘Bachelor Chair’ in series, followed by the ‘Tivoli Chair’ the year after. His participation in a furniture competition led to a great number of designs which would later serve as the foundation for many successful furniture series. Panton made a name for himself in 1958 with the ‘Wire Cone Chair’, and in 1959 began collaborating with the companies Plus-Linje, Unika Vaev and Louis Poulsen. With the design of the first inflatable furniture made of transparent plastic film, Verner Panton made history. In 1962, he met his second wife Marianne on the island of Tenerife; although she had grown up in the field of agriculture and had previously had little to do with art and design, she would become Verner Panton’s most important supporter and advisor, at his side throughout his life. After moving to Switzerland in 1963, he created numerous pieces of furniture and lighting which made Panton’s name international. 

The design of space with geometry and colour

Described by his widow Marianne Panton as a man of a thousand ideas, Verner Panton was by no means satisfied with merely designing individual pieces of furniture, however revolutionary they might be: his declared aim was to create the design of an entire room in which he drew on his preference for geometric shapes and strong colours to coordinate walls, floors, ceilings and interiors and transform them into an indissoluble whole. Following these principles, Panton designed the publishing house of the Spiegel tabloid magazine in Hamburg, of which only the canteen and snack bar remain today. With their psychedelic-like design, Panton’s creations often bore more resemblance to art objects than to furniture, but despite this, the designer spent a lot of time making his products comfortable and usable. With charming playfulness and great amenability towards new technologies, the Dane succeeded again and again in overcoming the established and setting new accents. 

Verner Panton died in Copenhagen on 5 September 1998.