Verner Panton

The Collected Works
05.02.2000 - 12.06.2000

With the Panton Chair, the first single unit cantilevered chair made of moulded plastic, Verner Panton succeeded in creating one of the most famous chair designs of the century. His „Fantasy Landscape Room“ at the „Visiona 2“ exhibition became an emblem of the Sixties which is included in virtually every study on the design of that wild decade. However, it would be erroneous to regard the Danish designer Verner Panton (1926 - 1998) merely as a great master of Sixties design. Although extravagant forms and the use of strong, intense colours typify his work, it is undeniably grounded in the elegant functionalism in the Fifties. And in spite of the creativity and love of experimentation revealed in his œvre, he retained a systematic approach to design throughout his life. His interest was not limited to single  objects, but extended to the development of groups of furnishings and the design of entire spaces. Verner Panton‘s unusually extensive and diverse work, which was the subject of a comprehensive retrospective by the Vitra Design Museum Berlin, was rightly regarded as a major contribution to the development of design in the second half of the 20th century. In preparation for this retrospective, the Vitra Design Museum drew on its superb collection of Panton objects, as well as the entire Panton archives, which thanks to many years of personal contact with the designer has been preserved and received scholarly evaluation in Weil am Rhein. Along with countless sketches and drawings for furniture, lighting elements and other objects, among them the legendary landscaped interiors, the museum archives includes documents related to Panton`s architectural work, which until then had remained unexplored. In addition, this exhibition provided the opportunity to systematically organise and analyse his textile designs, which occupied a central position in his œvre.

Exhibition tour

17.10.2009 - 27.12.2009, Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
14.05.2009 - 12.07.2009, National Museum of Singapore, Singapore
08.12.2007 - 02.03.2008, Seoul Art Centre, Hangaram Design Museum, Seoul, Korea
16.11.2006 - 14.01.2007, TADA Taiwan Art Design and Architecture Center, Taichung, China
01.06.2005 - 01.10.2005, AXA Gallery, New York, USA
26.04.2004 - 10.10.2004, Saline Royale, Arc et Senans, France
20.06.2003 - 26.10.2003, DDC Dansk Design Center, Copenhagen, Danmark
22.08.2002 - 13.10.2002, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, Spain
27.04.2002 - 31.07.2002, NRW Forum, Düsseldorf, Germany
22.01.2002 - 20.04.2002, Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza, Conde de Fenosa, La Coruna, Spain
19.09.2001 - 10.02.2002, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, Portugal
04.04.2001 - 10.09.2001, Schloß Schönbrunn Wien, Vienna, Austria
04.11.2000 - 07.01.2001, Grassimuseum, Leipzig, Germany
30.06.2000 - 15.10.2000, Vitra Design Museum, Berlin, Germany
05.02.2000 - 12.06.2000, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany