Design Moment - Panton Chair

This Danish designer’s revolutionary idea has earnt a seat of honour in cultural history, writes Chris Pearson.

- Chris Pearson

Fifty years ago, Verner Panton’s S (for ‘stacking’) chair made its debut in Mobilia, a Danish design magazine. The cover, showing seven of the seats in various shades, and the accompanying story inside, caused a sensation. No one had seen a chair like it: just one piece of cantilevered polyester, poised on its own pedestal. The sinuous form soon wrapped itself around the collective imagination.

Panton conceived the idea for the chairs in the 1950s, when visiting a factory making buckets that neatly stacked one inside the other. While he toyed with the concept for some time – he produced a version in cantilevered moulded plywood with Thonet from 1955 – his efforts to translate the idea to plastic were thwarted. Few manufacturers wanted to touch something so radical and tricky to produce. But then Panton knocked on the door of Willi Fehlbaum, managing director of Swiss manufacturer Vitra. Fehlbaum was up for a challenge and in 1967 a limited number went into production.