Wire Stool VP11

Overview

Wire Stool VP11 is a stackable stool that doubles as a side table. Verner Panton is the designer, the page and the fact sheet date it 1981, and &Tradition produces it. Stainless-steel wire forms a simple geometric shape with repeated patterns, and every stool can take detachable seat pads in four colours that hold on with a discreet magnet.

Construction

Stainless steel wire is bent into circles and spot welded together, finished in mirror polished steel. A magnetic steel centre plate holds the seat pad. Twelve stools stack.

Image source: &Tradition — Wire Stool VP11 · © &Tradition and the respective rights holders. Quoted to accompany INTEBEE's independent design commentary and research. · View official product page ↗ · Image use & copyright policy

Specifications

H 42 × Ø 44 cm. Weight 2.3 kg.

A stool for the Pantons' own homes

&Tradition's journal tells the story through Marianne Panton, Verner Panton's wife and partner. The household often ran short of chairs when guests came, and Verner remembered a simple wire stool he had designed a couple of years before. The couple commissioned a number of them for their home and studio in Basel and for the summer house in Denmark. About a dozen were made in 1981 by a small manufacturer in the south of Switzerland, some in chrome and some colour-coated, and the stool never reached the market until &Tradition added it to its range.

Why wire

The journal names three reasons for Panton's interest in wire: it is an inexpensive industrial material suited to simple series production, it gives maximum stability and load-bearing capacity from a minimum of material, and its optical lightness and transparency leave the surrounding space visible.