Verner Panton – Artists & Designer

Biography

Verner Panton's designs represent new lifestyles, a high degree of experimentation, and thus a radical break with existing traditions.

The defining element of his designs has always been color. 'Color', Panton said, 'is more important than form'.

Verner Panton became one of the leading European designers in the 1960s. With a multitude of original designs, he was thus able to advance the development of modern design on an international level. If you think of the 'Panton Chair' that is still in production today, the timeless 'Flower Pots' of the 1960s or functional, sculptural objects such as the 'Living Tower', you realize the impact of his designs.

The Danish designer's career began in 1951, after completing his studies in architecture at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen. Throughout his life, Verner Panton described himself as a designer and an architect, which can also be seen in his work, as there are strong parallels between the two fields. The designer always had a tendency towards utopian experiments with new materials for which he usually chose a geometric language of forms. He embedded this approach in a strong systematic idea. His design of the Spiegel publishing house in Hamburg and his contribution to the 'Visiona II' exhibition at the Cologne Furniture Fair in 1970 are important examples of this. The totality of his design ideas in large spatial concepts remained for a long time his outstanding feature. It was not until the mid-1960s that other designers, including Joe Colombo and Pierre Paulin, tried their hand at comparable radical practices.