An Innovative Icon of Modern Design
Of course, the Panton Chair would never have been created without its creator, the world-renowned designer Verner Panton, whose career began in the early 1950s, immediately after he graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Although one might expect that, as a native Dane, Panton would draw on his country’s rich design history, his visionary spirit shone through , and he soon set out to create an innovative chair unlike anything the world had seen before.
At the turn of 1958/1959, the future Panton Chair took on a concrete form at a 1:1 scale—but it was made of polystyrene and therefore impossible to sit on. Thanks to the prototype, however, Panton was able to partner with Vitra, which decided to bring this groundbreaking design to life.
When the Panton Chair first saw the light of day in 1959, it also became the very first chair in the world to be made entirely from a single piece of molded plastic. However, it took nearly another decade of intensive collaboration between Vitra and Verner Panton before the chair was unveiled to the public in 1967.
Since then, the Panton Chair, with its distinctive S-shape, has remained in the spotlight and has been a symbol of innovation and an icon of modern design for generations.
A Chair with Sex Appeal
The Panton Chair quickly became part of the pop culture of the late, carefree 1960s. In the 1970s, it even became known as“the sexiest chair” ever made.
This title was helped along by singer, model, and Salvador Dalí’s muse Amanda Lear, who posed for photographer Brian Duffy in a striptease series titled “How to undress in front of your husband” (How to Undress in Front of Your Husband). As she removed her underwear, her only companion was none other than the Panton chair in a fiery red color.
The striptease photo series was published by the British magazine Nova, and although the actress didn’t show anything particularly scandalous, the entire issue was mired in controversy and even cost the magazine’s editor his job. And what did Verner Panton have to say about it? He was amused that his chair had been portrayed as a sexy symbol of the 1960s.
A Chair That Caused a Stir in the Czech Republic, Too
The chair also garnered widespread attention in the Czech Republic in 2006. Designers Jakub Berdych and Maxim Velčovský from the Qubus studio used a white Panton chair during the renovation of St. Bartholomew’s Church in the small village of Chodovice. The entire project became a hit in international design magazines—after all, who would expect to find rows of modern chairs with an embossed cross on the back behind the walls of a weathered church in a small Czech village?
(Photo credit: Filip Šlapal)
50th Anniversary
That’s right—the Panton chair is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and in its honor, Vitra has released two limited editions: Panton Chrome and Panton Glow. And that’s the latest chapter in the rich history of this legendary chair. We hope you found its story as fascinating as we did. You’ll find all the color variations in our selection:).
