Vitra Chair Green Plastic material. Dimensions: L 50 x Depth 60 cm x H
83 cm – Seat: H 41.5 cm. Treat yourself to an ORIGINAL iconic piece by
Vitra. An original will always retain its value. It’ll be with you all your
life and outlast you, ready to be passed on to the next generation. Danish
architect and designer Verner Panton (1926 – 1998) is considered one of the
most influential designers of the 20th century. This outstanding figure of
Scandinavian design has created innovative, futuristic design objects during his
career which still inspire the most avant-garde designers today. His style,
typical of the 60s and 70s, remains imbued with great modernity. The Panton
chair was designed by Verner Panton in 1959. Today, this chair is an icon of
20th-century design. It’s won numerous international design awards and is
part of the permanent collections of famous museums. The Panton Chair was the
first plastic chair made in one piece. Very difficult to produce because of its
cantilevered shape, this chair has gone through several stages of production
since it was first marketed. The Panton Chair Classic model is the original
version in rigid polyurethane foam with a glossy lacquer finish. The overhanging
structure combined with a well adapted shape and soft material make the chair
very comfortable to sit in. Danish designer Verner Panton developed the idea for
a plastic cantilever chair in the late 1950s. However, no manufacturer showed
interest in this daring concept. Vitra founder Willi Fehlbaum found the idea
interesting but saw no possibility of creating it immediately. When Rolf
Fehlbaum, Head of Product Development, returned full of enthusiasm from a visit
to Verner Panton, he finally approved it. Verner Panton said: “One day Rolf
Fehlbaum (the son of the founding family of Vitra) came to visit us and saw a
prototype of the Panton chair. It wasn't stable enough to sit on. Why isn't this
chair being made? Rolf asked. I answered: “Fifteen to twenty manufacturers
have tried it, but for various reasons, they all refused to produce it.”
A renowned American designer – it wasn't Eames – even said that this kind
of object should not be called a ‘chair’, saying it wasn’t meant for
sitting on.” Rolf immediately called Manfred Diebold, a technician at Vitra.
[…] Without Rolf, the Panton Chair would not exist.” So, in 1963, Vitra
embarked on the development of one of the most iconic and famous chairs of the
20th century. This challenge proved almost impossible to master, as the bold
shapes envisioned by the designer had to be reconciled with the physical
limitations of plastics technology and the demands of production techniques.
Years of intensive research, testing, development and abandoned prototypes
followed. The ultimate shape of the chair was finally worked out through a
series of ten prototypes in polyester reinforced with fibreglass, laminated by
hand. In 1967, the Panton Chair could be produced in a small preliminary series
of 150 pieces, in cold-moulded polyester reinforced with fibreglass. This was
the first all-plastic one-piece chair with a cantilever structure. With its
sculptural form and Panton’s characteristic bright colours, it was a
sensation. However, the expensive, complex process did not meet the demand.
After further successful trials on a new rigid polyurethane foam from Bayer,
actual series production, using an injection moulding process, began in
1968. It did allow larger quantities to be produced, but still required
fastidious manual finishing. Verner Panton and Vitra continued to search for
better alternatives. They believed they’d found a promising solution in a new
thermoplastic material developed by BASF. The material, however, turned out to
be less durable than it initially appeared, causing the chairs to break and
potentially damaging Vitra's image. Production was therefore suspended in
1979. At Vitra, the shock of this quality problem had a lasting effect for
years. Interest in the Panton Chair continued throughout this time, however.
Vitra resumed production in 1990 – reverting to the rigid unbreakable
polyurethane foam, but requiring a complex finish. Advances in plastics
technology, and in particular new possibilities of injection moulding, prompted
Vitra and Panton to return to the question in the 1990s. A new version of the
polypropylene Panton Chair was developed. Thus, thirty years after the start of
mass production, one of Panton's key objectives was finally achieved: the
plastic chair as an affordable industrial product. Verner Panton died shortly
before the presentation in 1999. Vitra places a high priority on investing in
innovation. The combination of the company’s technical know-how and the
creativity of great designers makes it possible to go beyond the limits of
creation. At the same time, Vitra is constantly updating design classics with
designers or their descendants, following the original archived documents so
that they can meet the needs of today's users. With this in mind, Vitra
produces two models of this chair: the Panton Chair Classic, made of rigid
polyurethane foam with a glossy surface, and the Panton Chair with a matt
surface structure. In 2007, the Panton Junior children's chair was added, based
on the designer's original plans.
