For the first time since Louis Poulsen introduced the Panthella in collaboration with Danish architect and designer Verner Panton in 1971, the iconic Panthella design will be reintroduced with an acrylic shade in glossy gray opal.

 

The recently introduced medium-sized Panthella Table 320 will be available in the original gray opal finish. Louis Poulsen will also introduce Panthella Mini and Panthella Portable in the gray opal variant. This versatile finish is aesthetically pleasing in any home interior—as well as in restaurants, conference rooms, hotels, and other venues wanting a touch of artistic design and lighting of the highest quality.

 

The Panthella Portable is cordless and has three light settings, making it ideal for moving freely from inside to outside after dark or for easy and cozy night-time illumination outside restaurants and cafés.

 

Panthella was inspired by Panton’s own Mirror Wall Lamp, which he incorporated as luminescent tiles in his 1969 decoration of the German magazine Der Spiegel’s cafeteria in Hamburg. The principle of concealing the light source behind a hemisphere shade and letting the light reflect in the base continues in this new reintroduction of the Panthella.

 

Panton always sought to create graphic and figurative luminaires, which could act as small sculptures while also being functional lamps. With the Panthella, both the lampshade and the trumpet-shaped base work as light reflectors, which accentuates its functional aspect.

 

In the gray opal version, the shade is white on the inside. Combined with the trumpet-shaped base in high-luster chrome, the shade ensures a prime reflection of the light—resulting in pleasant, non-glaring illumination that creates a near-perfect ambiance.

 

To this day, Panthella remains one of Panton’s most cherished luminaires because of its expressive yet soft and organic design language and superb lighting qualities. Its timeless design reminds us of how far ahead of his colleagues Panton was with his love of—and willingness to experiment with—colors, shapes, light, spaces, and new materials at a moment in Scandinavian design history when most of his contemporaries preferred working with more classic materials.

 

Panton was famous for his inspirational and colorful personality, and for saying that the main purpose of his work was to provoke people into using their imaginations. Rather than pleasing, Panton wanted to push conceptions of design and its effects. Perhaps that is precisely why he became one of the most influential designers of the 20th century.

 

Panthella Table 320, Panthella Mini, and Panthella Portable will be available in the original gray opal finish this coming spring.

 

About Verner Panton

 

Over the course of his career, Verner Panton (1926-1998) introduced a series of modern lamps with qualities unlike any of his Scandinavian contemporaries. With remarkable faith in the unlimited possibilities of form, he successfully established a new set of theories about light functionality and had an immense influence on design in general.

 

Panton had very clear ideas about his work and about shape, color, and function. At the same time, he made conscious and bold use of different materials. He liked experimenting and working in plastic, foam, Plexiglass, etc., and making his designs available to a broader audience. While prominent Danish contemporaries like Poul Kjærholm, Hans J. Wegner, and Børge Mogensen were applying traditional craftsmanship to classic, natural materials, Panton thought ahead of his time and kept pushing the boundaries of materials, design possibilities, and production methods.

 

About Louis Poulsen

 

Founded in 1874, the Danish lighting manufacturer Louis Poulsen creates products that encompass the duality of design and light. Every detail in the design has a purpose. Every design starts and ends with light. Louis Poulsen offers a range of lighting aimed at the commercial and domestic lighting markets, with lighting fixtures and solutions for both indoor and outdoor applications. In close partnership with designers, architects, and other talents like Poul Henningsen, Arne Jacobsen, Verner Panton, Øivind Slaatto, Alfred Homann, Oki Sato, and Louise Campbell, Louis Poulsen has established itself as one of the key global suppliers of architectural and decorative lighting. The company has a global presence with showrooms in Copenhagen, Miami, Oslo, Tokyo, Singapore, and Dusseldorf.