Chair by Anne Massey

Author:Anne Massey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reaktion Books

Verner Panton, Inflatable with Panton’s first wife, Tove Kemp, c. 1960. The slender form of Tove in relaxed pose and casual outfit chimes perfectly with the innovative informality of the stool.

For example, Arne Jacobsen’s Egg chair, dating from 1957–8, is soft and sculptural in form. Originally designed for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen (also by Jacobsen), it consists of a moulded fibreglass shell, upholstered in thin foam and covered in fabric. The curvaceous armchair rested on an aluminium base, which allowed the sitter to swivel around. Jacobsen was developing Saarinen’s concept of the chair as a womb, which would enclose the sitter, perhaps with legs tucked up on the seat informally. This is in contrast to the formality of the modernist designer chair of the 1920s and ’30s, and the severity of the SAS Hotel itself. Another Danish designer to work on more irreverent chair designs, to mirror a relaxation of social mores, was Verner Panton. During the 1950s he experimented with inflatable plastic to form a large stool for sitting on, which finally entered production in the 1960s. His wife, Tove Kemp, was seen perched on the stool in a cool, all-black beatnik outfit of plain polo neck and slim-fitting trousers with flat shoes, again, attesting to the informality of the age.

Panton’s Peacock chair of 1960 consisted of an open, circular, metal frame with seven round cushions, placed like a peacock’s tail. The chair is informal, close to the ground and designed for curling up on. Panton also designed the stackable chair in the same year, which is a free-form, fibreglass, S-shaped seat. Initially formed from moulded Baydur or hardened foam, then thermoplastic, it was the first chair to be made from a single material, in a single form and to be injection-moulded. With its sensuous curves, it featured in the groundbreaking women’s magazine Nova for its controversial article ‘How Yo Undress in Front of Your Man’ in May 1971. Featured in bright red, the chair was photographed from the side in 24 stop shots, while the post-operative, transgender strip artist Amanda Lear removed dress, stockings, bra, shoes, knickers then hat. Panton then designed the ‘Flying Chairs’ for Herman Miller, which consisted of seating suspended from the ceiling. It made a huge impact at the 1964 Cologne Furniture Fair.

Panton really broke down the barriers of formal sitting in 1970 when he designed a psychedelic environment, with loosely formed seating as part of the interior walls at the Visiona II exhibition for Bayer at the Cologne Furniture Fair. This enabled visitors to the exhibition to strike a series of poses within the environment – sitting, lounging, lying down or positions in between. Panton was also the first designer to experiment with inflatable chairs, starting in 1960. However, it was the Blow chair, designed by Italians Carlo Scolari, Donato D’Urbino, Paolo Lomazzi and Gionatan de Pas in 1967, that gained the greatest popularity, and spawned thousands of copies. Manufactured by the Milanese-based firm Zanotta, it featured innovative technology with the seams that joined the PVC welded by radio frequency.

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