Vitra presents: Verner Panton – 100 Years, 2026

To celebrate his legacy, Vitra and the Vitra Design Museum are planning a year-long programme of events and initiatives in collaboration with the Panton family. Highlights include exhibitions, the launch of products in new fabrics and leathers, several limited editions, and the reissue of one of his most playful designs.

Press kit linked here

Verner Panton and Vitra

In the early 1950s, Verner Panton began exploring the idea of a chair made from a single material and formed in one piece. By the mid-1950s he had developed the drawings, and in 1958 the first full-scale model was completed. Willi Fehlbaum, the founder of Vitra, was interested in the idea but only agreed to it when his son Rolf Fehlbaum paid a visit to Panton, returned with glowing reports and initiated further development. This led to the collaboration with Vitra in the early 1960s on the development of the Panton Chair and in 1967 the first cantilever chair moulded from a single piece of glass-fiber reinforced polyester was born. Today, it is one of the most striking and best-known icons of 20th century furniture design.

The professional collaboration between Verner Panton and Vitra evolved into lasting ties with his family, who remained in the Basel area – where his wife Marianne still resides today. Verner Panton passed away in Copenhagen in 1998. The close partnership continues through Marianne Panton and their daughter Carin Panton von Halem and extends to re-editions of the Cone Chair, Heart Cone Chair, Amoebe, Amoebe Highback, Visiona Stool and Living Tower, which have been manufactured by Vitra since 2004.

Verner Panton & Vitra Design Museum

The Vitra Design Museum maintains one of the most important Verner Panton collections. These holdings serve as a key resource for exhibitions, loans, and publications, all under approval by Verner Panton Design AG.

In 2000, the Vitra Design Museum presented a comprehensive retrospective of Verner Panton’s work, and a new exhibition will open in May 2026 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Heart Cone Chair Anniversary Edition

To celebrate what would have been Verner Panton’s 100th birthday on 13 February 2026, Vitra and Verner Panton Design AG are launching a limited edition of the Heart Cone Chair in a duo-tone version. The front and back of the chair are finished in two different shades of blue, adding extra vitality to its already expressive form and making the Heart Cone Chair the centrepiece of any interior.

In 1957, Danish architect and designer Verner Panton was commissioned by his father to design an extension to the restaurant Kom Igen in Denmark’s Langesø Park. Panton was given free rein and designed the entire interior, including textiles, carpets, lighting, furniture, uniforms for the staff and the menus. The furniture pieces for the project also included a chair: the Cone Chair, shaped like an inverted cone. Its padded shell forms the seat, backrest and armrests.

Shortly thereafter, Panton expanded this idea further by developing the Heart Cone Chair. Its expansive heart-shaped backrest combined comfort and freedom of movement with an iconic silhouette. The design exemplifies Panton’s fascination with geometry and his aim to unite functionality with emotional impact. The Cone Chair and the Heart Cone Chair soon became icons of modern design, embodying Panton’s distinctive aesthetic language.

In the early 1960s, Vitra began collaborating with Verner Panton to develop and realise his idea for a cantilever chair made from a single material and formed in one piece — the revolutionary Panton Chair. This partnership continues to this day: Vitra maintains a close relationship with the Panton family and, in cooperation with the rights holder Verner Panton Design AG, is dedicated to preserving and further developing selected works by the visionary designer.
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Panton Chair Classic Gold

After several years of joint development by Verner Panton and Vitra, the Panton Chair was finally ready for production in 1967 – as the first solid polymer cantilever chair to be manufactured in one material in one piece. Created with a revolutionary production technique, the chair’s unique sculptural design was presented to the public for the first time at the imm Furniture Fair in Cologne in 1968. It rapidly came to symbolise an entire era.

Throughout his career, Verner Panton was fascinated by mirrored surfaces and experimented with diverse reflective effects more extensively than almost any other designer. This passion is evident in his works of furniture and lighting as well as many of his expressive interiors.

Back in the early 1970s he had explored the option of giving the Panton Chair a mirrored surface. He felt that the chair’s dynamic curves were particularly suited to a reflective finish; however, the sensitivity of such a coating to scratching was an insurmountable technical obstacle at that time. It remains problematic even today – but thanks to advances in technology and the development of a highly complex process, it is now technically feasible. Vitra has embraced this challenge and launched the Panton Chair Classic Gold, a limited edition that expresses the idea of a mirrored surface in a warm golden tone.

The dazzling mirror-like effect of the Panton Chair Classic Gold is the result of a metallisation process in which metal particles are embedded in multiple layers of varnish. This complex coating system is resilient enough to cope with the slight movement of the cantilever chair when in use, while being sufficiently robust to make the finish less susceptible to scratching. Several stages of the elaborate production process of the Panton Chair Classic Gold are carried out with meticulous handcraft.

The Panton Chair Classic Gold is being produced in a limited edition of 999 pieces.

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