430 Barstool

Verner Panton introduced the word “groovy” — or at least its Danish equivalent — into the Scandinavian modern design lexicon. He developed fantastical, futuristic forms and embraced bright colors and new materials such as plastic, fabric-covered polyurethane foam and steel-wire framing for the creation of his chairs, sofas, floor lamps and other furnishings. And Panton’s ebullient Pop art sensibility made him an international design star of the 1960s and ’70s. This radical departure from classic Danish modernism, however, actually stemmed from his training under the greats of that design style.

Born on the largely rural Danish island of Funen, Panton studied architecture and engineering at Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where the lighting designer Poul Henningsen was one of his teachers. After graduating, in 1951, Panton worked in the architectural office of Arne Jacobsen, and he became a close friend of Hans Wegner's.

Henningsen taught a scientific approach to design; Jacobsen was forever researching new materials; and Wegner, the leader in modern furniture design using traditional woodworking and joinery, encouraged experimental form.

Panton opened his own design office in 1955, issuing tubular steel chairs with woven seating. His iconoclastic aesthetic was announced with his 1958 Cone chair, modified a year later as the Heart Cone chair. Made of upholstered sheet metal and with a conical base in place of legs, the design shocked visitors to a furniture trade show in Copenhagen. 

Panton went on to successive bravura technical feats. His curving, stackable Panton chair, his most popular design, was the first chair to be made from a single piece of molded plastic.

Panton had been experimenting with ideas for chairs made of a single material since the late 1950s. He debuted his plastic seat for the public in the design magazine Mobilia in 1967 and then at the 1968 Cologne Furniture Fair. The designer’s S-Chair models 275 and 276, manufactured during the mid-1960s by August Sommer and distributed by the bentwood specialists at Gebrüder Thonet, were the first legless chairs crafted from a single piece of plywood.

Panton would spend the latter half of the 1960s and early ’70s developing all-encompassing room environments composed of sinuous and fluid-formed modular seating made of foam and metal wire. He also created a series of remarkable lighting designs, most notably his Fun chandeliers — introduced in 1964 and composed of scores of shimmering capiz-shell disks — and the Space Age VP Globe pendant light of 1969.

Panton’s designs are made to stand out and put an eye-catching exclamation point on even the most modern decor.

Find vintage Verner Panton chairs, magazine racks, rugs, table lamps and other furniture on 1stDibs.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

Chairs are an indispensable component of your home and office. Can you imagine your life without the vintage, new or antique chairs you love?

With the exception of rocking chairs, the majority of the seating in our homes today — Windsor chairs, chaise longues, wingback chairs — originated in either England or France. Art Nouveau chairs, the style of which also originated in those regions, embraced the inherent magnificence of the natural world with decorative flourishes and refined designs that blended both curved and geometric contour lines. While craftsmanship and styles have evolved in the past century, chairs have had a singular significance in our lives, no matter what your favorite chair looks like.

“The chair is the piece of furniture that is closest to human beings,” said Hans Wegner. The revered Danish cabinetmaker and furniture designer was prolific, having designed nearly 500 chairs over the course of his lifetime. His beloved designs include the Wishbone chair, the wingback Papa Bear chair and many more.

Other designers of Scandinavian modernist chairs introduced new dynamics to this staple with sculptural flowing lines, curvaceous shapes and efficient functionality. The Paimio armchair, Swan chair and Panton chair are vintage works of Finnish and Danish seating that left an indelible mark on the history of good furniture design.

“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts,” said Ray Eames. 

Visionary polymaths Ray and Charles Eames experimented with bent plywood and fiberglass with the goal of producing affordable furniture for a mass market. Like other celebrated mid-century modern furniture designers of elegant low-profile furnishings — among them Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Finn Juhl — the Eameses considered ergonomic support, durability and cost, all of which should be top of mind when shopping for the perfect chair. The mid-century years yielded many popular chairs.

The Eameses introduced numerous icons for manufacturer Herman Miller, such as the Eames lounge chair and ottoman, molded plywood dining chairs the DCM and DCW (which can be artfully mismatched around your dining table) and a wealth of other treasured pieces for the home and office. 

A good chair anchors us to a place and can become an object of timeless appeal. Take a seat and browse the rich variety of vintage, new and antique chairs on 1stDibs today.