Vitra Children's chair White Plastic material. Dimensions: L 37.5 x Depth
44,6 cm x H 62,8 cm – Seat: H 34.8 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 one of the
designers who decisively influenced the development of design in the 1960s and
1970s. 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 one-piece plastic chair is a design icon of the 20th century.
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. Released in 2006, the Panton Junior children's chair is made
using the designer's original plans. It uses the same materials and proportions
as the Panton Chair by Verner Panton, but its size is reduced by about a
quarter. The Panton Junior is an ideal seat for preschool and primary school
children. 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.
