Verner Panton was born in Gamtofte, Denmark in 1926. He attended the Tekniske Skole (Polytechnic) in Odense between 1944 and 1947 before going on to study architecture until 1951 at the Royal Danish Art Academy in Copenhagen.
Verner Panton was one of the most innovative of all 20th-century designers, exerting a lasting and far-reaching influence through his sculptural designs, some of them playfully futuristic, and the vividly colored works he created.
From 1950 to 1952 Verner Panton worked in Arne Jacobsen's practice.
In 1955 Panton founded a practice of his own in Copenhagen. In the following years, Verner Panton stirred up quite a bit of controversy with his innovative architectural concepts, such as a "Cardboard House" (1957), and a "Plastic House" (1960).
Moreover, Panton was active from the 1950s as an interior decorator, exhibition designer, and all-round designer. He broke entirely with convention, designing rooms as landscapes in vibrant color tones as in the interior (1958) of "Komigen Kro", a guest house in Langesø on the island of Funen. The unusual way Verner Panton dealt with furnishings and other features of his interiors would become typical of the other interior appointments he created.
In 1955 Panton had come up with a design for a swing chair made of a single piece of laminated wood, the "S" chair. The "Panton" chair (1959/1960) represented a successful translation by Verner Panton of form into plastic materials.
In 1962 the Hermann Miller Company acquired the production rights to the "Panton chair" and it was ultimately made by Vitra for Hermann Miller. The "Panton" chair is one of the earliest chairs made from a single piece of pressure-diecast plastic. Among Verner Panton's many other, extremely successful designs are the lamps he created for companies such as Louis Poulsen and J. Lüber.
In 1969/1970 Verner Panton created seat furniture for Hermann Miller: "Living Tower", consisting of upholstered modules.
From 1969 to 1985, he also designed textiles printed with geometric patterns for Mira-X, using both Op-art patterns and his signature "rainbow" in vibrant colors.
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