In 1989, the Swiss furniture company Vitra commissioned Zaha Hadid to create a painting to celebrate the iconic cantilevered plastic chair by the Danish architect and designer Verner Panton (1926-98), as part of the 1990 Cologne international furniture fair. In the Zaha Hadid Foundation Collections, there are multiple experiments with different perspectives and colour palettes. The final painting, Hommage à Verner Panton (1990), takes the form of a rotational drawing, offering multiple viewpoints of the chair. It marks Hadid’s first work for Vitra, who would go on to commission her first completed building, the Vitra Fire Station in 1993, Weil am Rhein, Germany.
Hadid was an avid admirer of Panton’s designs, and they shared a fascination with flexible and dynamic furniture. This kinship can be seen in her interior projects, such as the Moonsoon Restaurant (1989-1990), as well as the furniture lines Z-Scape, Z-Play and Iceberg (2000) for Sawaya & Moroni. Both Hadid’s architectural office and her own apartment in Clerkenwell were furnished with Panton chairs, which she admired for their fluid form and innovative use of material.
