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10 Verner Panton Designs You Simply Need to Know

Known for his bold colors, organic forms, and uncompromising vision, Verner Panton stands as one of the most radical figures in Danish design. Dive into 10 futuristic designs that take you through Verner Panton’s imaginative universe.

By Ida Elva Hagen

  • Photo: Montana

    Panton One (1955)

    Panton’s first mass-produced chair (1955) was commissioned by a restaurant in Tivoli and put into production by Fritz Hansen. The chair combines craftsmanship and industry, revealing his early interest in lightness, repetition, and structural clarity. Viewed through a contemporary lens, it appears as a transitional work – one that points toward his later radical experiments. It was later renamed from the Tivoli Chair to Panton One.

  • Photo: Vitra

    Cone Chair (1958)

    Designed for his father’s restaurant, “Kom Igen,” in 1958, the Cone Chair marked the foundation of Panton’s future design direction – a bold yet disciplined style that modernized basic geometric forms. The chair is made from a thin sheet of metal, gaining its structural strength from being folded into a cone shape. Upholstered in foam and covered in wool, it was made comfortable as well as striking.

    In collaboration with the company “Plus-Linje,” which exclusively produced and distributed Panton’s designs, Verner continued developing the concept into a full furniture series, including the 1959 “Heart Cone” chair, now considered one of his classics.

"Verner Panton had no patience for the world as it was. He designed as if the future had already arrived."

  • Photo: VERPAN

    Moon Lamp (1960)

    One of Panton’s earliest lighting designs and an important step toward his later experiments with light and space. The circular lamellae can be adjusted, creating a dynamic interplay of light and shadow. The lamp reveals Panton’s fascination with light as an active, space-defining element.

  • Photo: Vitra

    Panton Chair (1967)

    With its iconic S-shaped silhouette in plastic, Verner Panton offered an early glimpse of the future. The idea emerged in the late 1950s, but it wasn’t until 1967 that the chair finally went into production after years of material experimentation. The result was the world’s first cantilevered chair made from a single piece of plastic – a symbol of pop design and new manufacturing possibilities. It was later introduced in more affordable versions, and today the popular chair is still produced by Vitra.

  • Photo: Louis Poulsen

    Flowerpot (1968)

    After its debut at the first Visiona exhibition in 1968, the Flowerpot lamp immediately went into production with Louis Poulsen. Its two hemispherical shades create soft, indirect light and a simple, graphic silhouette. The lamp became a symbol of the era’s optimism and Panton’s ambition to bring color and form into everyday life.

  • Photo: VERPAN

    VP Globe Lamp (1969)

    A spectacular lamp that can easily be mistaken for a soap bubble or a UFO hovering in space. The VP Globe consists of a transparent acrylic sphere, with the distribution of light controlled by a system of internal reflectors. Once again, Panton combines system and industry with simple, organic forms – an interplay that illuminates and defines the shapes and colors of the surrounding space.

  • Photo: © Verner Panton Design AG

    Fantasy Landscape – Visiona II Exhibition (1970)

    With Fantasy Landscape, Panton created a total environment in which floors, walls, ceilings, and furniture were shaped into one cohesive, organic whole. Designed for Bayer for the 1970 Cologne trade fair, the installation embraced Panton’s vision of an environment that envelops people and shapes their experience within it. Here, the boundaries between architecture, furniture, light, color, and human behavior dissolve. The exhibition functioned as an experiment in new ways of living and inhabiting space – more sensory, flexible, and less bound by the traditional home.

    The “Living Tower” translated the organic forms of the Visiona II universe into a sculptural piece of furniture. This vertical structure invites people to sit, lie down, and lounge in new ways, challenging the conventional idea of the chair. The piece becomes a space in itself – a place for both community and individual retreat.

  • Photo: © Verner Panton Design AG

    Interior Installation – Varna Restaurant (1971)

    The Varna Restaurant stands as a key example of Panton’s idea of design as a total experience. Here, he worked with the entire room, allowing furniture, textiles, colors, and lighting to merge into a single sensory environment – a true gesamtkunstwerk. The space was conceived as an active participant in guests’ experiences and social interaction, clearly illustrating Panton’s vision that interiors can influence behavior, mood, and relationships.

  • Photo: Montana

    Pantonova Sofa (1971)

    The Pantonova wire furniture was created specifically for the interior of the Varna restaurant in Aarhus in 1971. Pantonova demonstrated Panton’s modular thinking – it wasn’t a single piece of furniture, but an entire system. The modules can be combined in endless shapes and configurations, clearly expressing Panton’s belief that furniture can support new social patterns and behaviors. The Pantonova sofa later achieved international fame when it appeared in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.

  • Photo: Louis Poulsen

    Panthella (1971)

    Panthella is a prime example of Panton’s human-centered approach to lighting. Its organic form conceals the light source and softly reflects the light in both the shade and the base. The result is warm, even illumination, where function and form merge into a unified expression. It was introduced in 1971 as both a table and floor lamp, and in 2016 it was further developed in a smaller version.

Why We Still Talk About Panton

»Verner Panton had no patience for the world as it was. He designed as if the future had already arrived. While much Danish design of his time sought calm, continuity, and natural materials, Panton insisted on rupture, color, progress, and the untested.

He had no interest in refining history, but in challenging our habits and the way we shape our surroundings. By embracing plastic, glass, and steel – and by creating atmospheres where color became form and light became movement – Panton designed not just furniture and lamps, but spatial universes where architecture and interiors merged into a total experience.

He took popular culture seriously and embraced mass production at face value, proposing imaginative visions of a future in which the artificial and technology were not threats, but fundamental conditions of life.

Today, as our surroundings are once again being renegotiated – shaped by technology, climate, and new social structures – Panton reminds us that design is not only about solutions, but about imagination and courage. About daring to use architecture and design to test new ways of living – not as final answers, but as explorations of what we have yet to discover.«

Pernille Stockmarr, Senior Curator at the Danish Architecture Center

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