Verner Panton

I was lucky enough to experience one of Panton's environments when I was in Vienna a couple of years ago with James. We went over to Austria because the Summer of Love exhibition was on at the Kunsthalle and I had missed it at the Tate Liverpool. It completely blew my mind... Particularly Panton's stuff. Check out this sight dedicated to his stuff (although some of it isn't uploaded yet and the frustratingly small 'coming soon' thumbnails are too much of a tease for me): www.vernerpanton.com

I first became aware of Panton's massive mark on the design world after reading an article about Lenny Kravitz' house about 12 years ago. His Miami ranch house, designed by Michael Czysz, is a hybrid of psychedelic influences which include an environment very similar to 'Visiona 2', the exhibit that I was fortunate enough to immerse myself in during my trip to Vienna. I kept the article and probably have it tucked away in an old sketchbook somewhere but can't for the life of me find it now I want to read it again! Just like me, Michael Czysz was clearly a big fan of Verner Panton's super-sexual, psychedelic-styles too.

Me in Vienna:



Hippies back in the day:



I was blown away by the quote on Verner Panton's site too:

"Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” (Wassily Kandinsky)

Although doing a bit more research it seems that 'harmonies' is replaced with 'hammers' in different versions of the quote. The first person to set me straight on this wins a psychedelic kiss from me, inspired by this: