31 Customized Panton Chairs For Vitra In Honor Of The 50th Anniversary.

above: HKS International turned the chair on its side, transforming it into a glacier, complete with Polar Bear

The modern classic iconic Panton chair , shown below, designed by Verner Panton just celebrated it's 50th anniversary.



In honor of the anniversary Vitra UK launched a national Panton Chair Competition and asked architects and designers to reinterpret the modern chair. Some treated is as art, others made it interactive. The winning design was an entry from Jump Studios and the 2nd and 3rd place winners were Ben Adams and Maris Interiors, respectively. Entries ran the gamut and included everything from Post-It note covered to Swarovski crystal studded versions.

Here are all the entries.

Winner, Jump Studios:

2nd Place Winner, Ben Adams:

3Sphere and Aukett Fitzroy-Robinson:

Amalgam and Aram:

Day 2 Interiors:

Forme and Foster & Partners:

Gensler and Harmsen:

HLW Architects and HOK International:

3rd place winner, Maris Interiors:

Pascall & Watson and Inskip jenkins:

MCM Architecture:

Pret A Manger and Pringle Brandon:

Ridgestone and Schneider Designers:

Scott Brownrigg:

Sheppard Robson and Sketch Studios:

Staffan Tollgard:

The Lollipop Shoppe and Walker Martin:

Workspirit and Woods Bagot:

Yoo Design:

HKS International's entry is shown at the top of this post.

All 31 entries were auctioned on 1st July 2010 and the proceedings of about £10,000 were passed onto Shelter.

The judge’s panel included:
Charles Saatchi
TV presenter Kevin McCloud
Designer Terence Conran

all original photos (cropped for this post) by Nicole Bachmann © Vitra UK