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Miniatures Heart-Shaped Cone Chair

Verner Panton, 1958

In the thirties and forties, Scandinavian design followed the principles of functionalism: simple structures, clear lines, a lightweight visual appearance. The desire for austerity of form was combined with a preference for wood as a natural material.

It was not until the fifties that young designers like Verner Panton began to use the formal possibilities created by innovative technologies in order to liberate furniture from the constraints of tradition. Verner Panton wrote of his works: »I try to forget existing examples, even if they are well made, and find my own way of coming to terms with the materials. The result seldom has four legs, not because I do not want to make a chair but because working with new materials like wire mesh and polyester demands new forms.«

The Heart Shaped Cone Chair embodies the transformation that took place in Scandinavian design in the late fifties. The purist furniture of lassical modernism was now joined by sculptural forms inspired by the new technologies. At the same time, the shape and color of the Cone Chair anticipate the »Pop Art« furniture of the sixties.

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Miniatures Collection

For over two decades, the Vitra Design Museum has been making miniature replicas of milestones in furniture design from its collection. The Miniatures Collection encapsulates the entire history of industrial furniture design – moving from Historicism and Art Nouveau to the Bauhaus and New Objectivity, from Radical Design and Postmodernism all the way up to the present day. Exactly one sixth the size of the historical originals, the chairs are all true to scale and precisely recreate the smallest details of construction, material and colour. The high standard of authenticity even extends to the natural grain of the wood, the reproduction of screws and the elaborate handicraft techniques involved. This has made the miniatures into popular collector's items as well as ideal illustrative material for universities, design schools and architects.