Interview – Niklas created his own Panton world!

The owner of the site Pantonworld did loan some fabrics for the exhibition Simply Scandinavian. We asked him about his passion for the work of the Danish designer Verner Panton. He transformed his own house to a true Pantonworld!

How did you come to collect stuff from just Verner Panton?

I started collecting plastics from the 60’s but quite fast changed it to only Verner Panton’s design.

First I collected everything including re-editions but now I mainly concentrate on the first edition pieces, prototypes or pieces with an important provenance.

What is your most special object and why?

I have some favorites but top three is probably the Ufo lamp prototype, a V. Panton, Light Column (1971) prototype and a big Ball lamp called Type A.

In my collection there are some other quite strange things as well. For example Verner Panton’s door sign from 1949 and several hundred original design drawings.

What would you like to have in your collection?

Except from another big Ball lamp, I would like to find a rare Mushroom lamp and a violet Illumesa table from the Visiona 2 exhibition in 1970.

What is your idea of replica’ of Panton works? 

There are some fake pieces that always pop up. I get emails very often about some dark green/light green plastic panels which are sold over and over again, the same story about prototyp Panton Chairs and also a home made Ball lamp with wrong measurements.

One finds copies in auction houses and museums so sometimes people have problems to believe me when I tell them these pieces are fake. They refer to old auction adds or pictures from museums.

Now I am a good friend to the Panton family so I can check things with them, but I also have a lot of documents for the control of details.

What do your children think of the collection?

I think our three kids are just used to it, so they don’t really care and simply like the special furniture such as the Living Tower and the 3-D Carpet. They also feel very comfortable in some rooms which are really colorful but on the other hand, they have never seen anything else…