 | |
| Designer | Verner Panton (Denmark) |
|---|---|
| Date | 1967 |
| Materials | Moulded plastic |
| Style / tradition | Modernist |
The Panton Chair (Danish : Pantonstolen) is an S-shaped plastic chair created by the Danish designer Verner Panton in the 1960s. The world's first moulded plastic chair, it is considered to be one of the masterpieces of Danish design. The chair was included in the 2006 Danish Culture Canon. [1]
The idea of designing a stackable plastic chair was first expressed by the German architect and designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe before the Second World War. From the early 1950s, Panton too had dreamt of making a stackable, cantilevered plastic chair all in one piece. It is said he had been inspired in particular by a neatly stacked pile of plastic buckets. In 1956, he designed the S Chair which can be considered a forerunner of the Panton Chair. He saw it as an item of furniture in which the back, seat and legs were made of the continuous piece. It was first produced in 1965. [2] [3]
Panton made a series of sketches and design drawings for the Panton Chair in the 1950s. In 1960, he created his first model, a plaster-cast, in collaboration with Dansk Akrylteknik. [2] In the mid-1960s, he met Willi Fehlbaum from the furniture manufacturer Vitra who, unlike many other producers, was fascinated with the drawings of his legless chair in plastic rather than wood, the favoured material of the times. Working closely with Fehlbaum, Panton produced a cold-pressed model using polyester strengthened with fibreglass. For the first time, an entire chair had been designed in one piece, without any legs. It became known as a free-swinger. The first rather heavy model, which required substantial finishing work, was subsequently improved and adapted to industrial production using thermoplastic polystyrene which led to a marked reduction in cost. [4] In 1968, Vitra initiated serial production of the final version which was sold by the Herman Miller Furniture Company. The material used was Baydur, a high-resilience polyurethane foam produced by Bayer in Leverkusen, Germany. It was offered in several colors. [5]
In 1979, however, production was halted as it became apparent that polystyrene[ clarification needed ] was not sufficiently durable and began to look shabby over time. Four years later, the model was again produced as the Panton Chair Classic, this time in the rather more expensive polyurethane structural foam. Finally, in 1999, Vitra used polypropylene for manufacturing the Panton Plastic Chair in a variety of colors. [4]
Panton was a contributor to the development of sleek new styles reflecting the "Space Age" of the 1960s which became known as Pop Art. The Panton Chair in particular was seen as being sleek and curvaceous. When it was unveiled in the Danish design journal Mobilia in 1967, it caused a sensation. In 1970, it was featured in the British fashion magazine Nova with a sequence of shots illustrating "How to undress in front of your husband". [6] Perhaps the chair's most famous appearance was in January 1995, when it was featured on the cover of the British edition of Vogue . The photograph by Nick Knight also included a naked Kate Moss. [7]
The Panton Chair S shape design continues to be popular today, and has been re-imagined in exotic materials such as rattan, bamboo, and even banana leaf. [8] [9]
Over the years, the Panton Chair, initially known as Panton's S Chair, has been widely exhibited in Denmark and abroad. It currently forms part of the permanent collections some of the world's most famous design museums including, New York's Museum of Modern Art, London's Design Museum, Berlin's German Historical Museum and Copenhagen's Danish Museum of Art & Design. [10] [11] [12]
Verner Panton is considered one of Denmark's most influential 20th-century furniture and interior designers. During his career, he created innovative and futuristic designs in a variety of materials, especially plastics, and in vibrant and exotic colors. His style was very "1960s" but regained popularity at the end of the 20th century. As of 2004, Panton's best-known furniture models are still in production.
Jasper Morrison is an English product and furniture designer. He is known for the refinement and apparent simplicity of his designs. In a rare interview with the designer, he is quoted as saying: "Objects should never shout."
Peter Ghyczy was a German designer of Hungarian origin, who lived in the Netherlands.
Vitra is a Swiss family-owned furniture company headquartered in Birsfelden, Switzerland. It manufactures the works of many furniture designers. Vitra is also known for the works of notable architects that make up its premises in Weil am Rhein, Germany, in particular the Vitra Design Museum.
The Vitra Design Museum is a privately owned museum for design in Weil am Rhein, Germany.
Marco Zanuso was an Italian modernist architect and designer.
Alberto Meda is an Italian engineer and designer. His work is held in museums around the world. He works and lives in Milan.
Danish design is a style of functionalistic design and architecture that was developed in mid-20th century. Influenced by the German Bauhaus school, many Danish designers used the new industrial technologies, combined with ideas of simplicity and functionalism to design buildings, furniture and household objects, many of which have become iconic and are still in use and production. Prominent examples are the Egg chair, the PH lamps and the Sydney Opera House (Australia).
Danish modern also known as Scandinavian modern is a style of minimalist furniture and housewares from Denmark associated with the Danish design movement. In the 1920s, Kaare Klint embraced the principles of Bauhaus modernism in furniture design, creating clean, pure lines based on an understanding of classical furniture craftsmanship coupled with careful research into materials, proportions, and the requirements of the human body.
The Bofinger Chair, also named BA 1171, was designed by architect and designer Helmut Bätzner in 1964. In close co-operation with Bofinger company, situated in Ilsfeld in Baden-Württemberg/Germany, under owner and managing director Rudolf Baresel-Bofinger, the Bofinger stacking chair was developed into the first one-piece plastic chair worldwide in fibreglass- reinforced polyester to be mass-produced in one single pressing process over a steel mould. The material was dyed all way through before being processed and available in a range of colours including white, yellow, black, red, blue, green, brown and orange. In a long trial series the characteristic shape of the chair was found in regard to seating shape, maximum stability by smallest quantity of material used, required elasticity, stacking capability, and industrial mass-production. The pressing process in the heated steel mould with a weight of approximately 11 tons lasted under five minutes and required as finishing treatment only simple scraping round the edges to remove excess polyester.
The Monobloc chair is a lightweight stackable polypropylene chair, usually white in color, often described as the world's most common plastic chair. The name comes from mono- ("one") and bloc ("block"), meaning an object forged in a single piece.
Gufram is an Italian furniture manufacturer known for avant-garde, conceptual, witty, and Pop-art influenced designs; the unconventional use of industrial materials; collaborations with well known architects and designers; and the contribution its products made to the aesthetics of the 1960s Radical period of Italian design.
Rolf Fehlbaum is chairman emeritus and active member of the board of directors of Vitra, a family-owned furniture company with headquarters in Birsfelden, Switzerland.
Joseph-André Motte was a French furniture designer and interior designer and ranks among the most influential and innovative figures of post-war French design.
Charles Randolph Pollock was an industrial designer who created sleek furniture, most notably an office chair held together by a single aluminum band that became known as a Pollock Chair. This iconic chair, introduced in 1963 and still in production, became a staple of executive offices in the United States in the 1960s and can be seen, appropriately, in the period television show, Mad Men, as well as institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Eames Molded Plastic & Fiberglass Armchair is a fiberglass chair, designed by Charles and Ray Eames, that appeared on the market in 1950. The chair was intentionally designed for the International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design. This competition, sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art, was motivated by the urgent need in the post-war period for low-cost housing and furnishing designs adaptable to small housing units.
The 40/4 chair is the compactly stackable chair designed by David Rowland in 1964. Forty chairs can be stacked within a height of 4 feet (120 cm), giving the chair its name. Over time it has received a number of design awards and is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as other museums internationally.
Zanotta is an Italian furniture company particularly known for the iconic pieces of Italian design it produced in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. These include the "Sacco" bean bag chair and "Blow", the first mass-produced inflatable chair. The company was founded in 1954 and has its main plant in Nova Milanese. In 1984 Zanotta established its experimental division, Zabro, headed by Alessandro Guerriero, with Alessandro Mendini and Stefano Casciani. Since the death of its founder, Aurelio Zanotta, in 1991, it has been run by members of his family. Zanotta's products were awarded the Compasso d'Oro in 1967, 1979, 1987 and 2020.
Heller is an American company founded in 1971 that makes and sells indoor/outdoor furniture and accessories. It is headquartered in Westport, Connecticut, United States. Its founder, Alan Heller, invited well-known architects and designers including Mario Bellini, Frank Gehry, and Lella and Massimo Vignelli to create products for the company.
The Vitra Fire Station is a concrete and steel building of 852 m2 (9,170 sq ft) located at the Vitra Furniture factory in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Completed in 1993, it was the first constructed project by Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid.
