midMOD monday: verner panton

The uncompromisingly innovative Verner Panton on today's midMOD monday.

We are deep into the psychedelic '60s on midMOD monday today with legendary Danish designer Verner Panton. Panton's futuristic work utilizing bright colors, novel materials, and unconventional forms made him one of the most influential designers of the twentieth century.

Born in Denmark in 1926, Panton studied architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen before working under another (midMOD monday) iconic designer, Arne Jacobsen. While Panton's work suggests Jacobsen's influence, the young apprentice advanced the master's concepts of modern design, creating his own avant-garde language that focused on bold, imaginative shapes in vibrant, exotic colors. Completely original and unapologetic, Panton's work pushed traditional notions of form and materials, defining the late modern period. Although the designer created a number of quintessential pieces, his development of complementary elements of a room ("gesamtkunstwerk") cemented his legendary status and his place within the upper echelons of the design world.

You can read more about Panton here. And you MUST, MUST, MUST, check out his work for the Spiegel publishing house in Hamburg, Germany. 

By Gregor Julien Straube (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Common.

By desmeki from Belgium (heart cone chair) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.