The Panton Chair ( da, Pantonstolen) is an S-shaped plastic chair created by the Danish designer
Verner Panton
Verner Panton (13 February 1926 – 5 September 1998) 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, especi ...
in the 1960s. The world's first moulded plastic chair, it is considered to be one of the masterpieces of
Danish design
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 ...
. The chair was included in the 2006
Danish Culture Canon
The Danish Culture Canon ( da, Kulturkanonen) consists of 108 works of cultural excellence in eight categories: architecture, visual arts, design and crafts, film, literature, music, performing arts, and children's culture. An initiative of Brian ...
.
History
The idea of designing a stackable plastic chair was first expressed by the German architect and designer
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...
before the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. 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.
["Verner Panton: Panton-stolen, 1960"]
, Skoletjenesen. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
Panton made a series of sketches and design drawings for the Panton Chair in the 1950s. I
1960 he created his first model, a plaster-cast, in collaboration with Dansk Akrylteknik.
[ 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
Polyester is a category of polymers that contain the ester functional group in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include natural ...
strengthened with fibreglass
Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...
. 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
Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a ...
which led to a marked reduction in cost.[Vivi Sjøner, "Panton Chair – verdens første"]
''Jyllands-Posten'', 8 June 2011. Retrieved 5 February 2013. 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
Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of busi ...
in Leverkusen
Leverkusen () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the eastern bank of the Rhine. To the south, Leverkusen borders the city of Cologne, and to the north the state capital, Düsseldorf.
With about 161,000 inhabitants, Leverkusen is on ...
, Germany. It was offered in several colors.
In 1979, however, production was halted as it became apparent that polystyrene 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
Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) refers to a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethan ...
structural foam. Finally, in 1999, Vitra used polypropylene
Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer propylene.
Polypropylene
belongs to the group of polyolefins and ...
for manufacturing the Panton Plastic Chair in a variety of colors.[
]
Exotic appeal
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
A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...
'' with a sequence of shots illustrating "How to undress in front of your husband". Perhaps the chair's most famous appearance was in January 1995, when it was featured on the cover of the British edition of ''Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
''. The photograph by Nick Knight also included a naked Kate Moss
Katherine Ann Moss (born 16 January 1974) is a British model. Arriving at the end of the "supermodel era", Moss rose to fame in the early 1990s as part of the heroin chic fashion trend. Her collaborations with Calvin Klein brought her to fas ...
.
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.
Museum collections
Over the years, the Panton Chair, initially known as Panton's S Chair, has been widely exhibited in Denmark
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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
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, London's Design Museum
The Design Museum in Kensington, London exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all funds generat ...
, Berlin's German Historical Museum
The German Historical Museum (german: Deutsches Historisches Museum), known by the acronym DHM, is a museum in Berlin, Germany devoted to German history. It describes itself as a place of "enlightenment and understanding of the shared history ...
and Copenhagen's Danish Museum of Art & Design
The Designmuseum Denmark () is a museum in Copenhagen for Danish and international design and crafts. It features works of famous Danish designers like Arne Jacobsen, Jacob Jensen and Kaare Klint, who was one of the two architects who remodeled ...
.
See also
*Danish modern
Danish 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 ...
References
{{reflist, 30em
1967 introductions
Danish inventions
Chairs
Danish Culture Canon
Danish furniture
Danish modern
Pop art
Individual models of furniture
Stacking chairs