Together with her colleague Nina Steinmüller, Susanne Graner is currently curating the major exhibition to mark the 100th birthday of Verner Panton. Anyone familiar with the work of the Danish designer and architect knows that this is not about design that stays silent, but about spaces that want to be experienced. About fantasy. About movement. About atmospheres. “One major challenge,” admits Susanne, “ is the fact that the spatiality of the Schaudepot is clearly defined by its three-level exhibition area.”

The legendary Fantasy Landscape – a walk-in installation that visitors can not only observe but physically experience – will once again serve as the heart of the exhibition.

This perfectly encapsulates Panton’s thinking: he believed that spaces should not merely be designed but also experienced holistically. “What are we sitting on? How are we lying? How do we move within a space? Panton always understood design as an overall experience,” emphasizes the curator.

It is hardly surprising that the Vitra Design Museum is now home to one of the most important archives of Panton’s work: it dedicated a large exhibition to him as early as 2000. Now, it is marking this anniversary with the most comprehensive show since that date. The archive houses not only numerous original objects but also over 40,000 drawings and documents. “This does not merely help us to trace his development processes, but also enables us to craft narratives,” said Susanne.

This is encapsulated by the famous Panton Chair, the original prototype of which, from 1958, is even located in the museum archive. While the chair is considered a design icon today, the idea seemed almost absurd at the time. A floating chair made entirely of plastic? Too radical, too risky, too technically difficult. It took almost ten years of development before the first series version could be produced.

As Head of Archive & Collection, Susanne and her team are responsible for tasks such as the preservation and care of the museum collection, the digitization of the archive, and the conservation work behind the scenes. She says, with a smile, that curating is more like “a side job” – one that greatly enriches her professional life day to day.

Her journey to the Vitra Design Museum started far away from classic design and futuristic residential landscapes. Originally, Susanne Graner completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter. She then studied restoration and conservation, and initially worked in monument preservation in Bavaria, focusing on Baroque high altars and historic church chairs, before shifting into a role in palace administration. But even during her studies, it became clear to her that her true passion was contemporary design.

She moved to the Die Neue Sammlung in Munich, one of the most important design museums in Germany, where she worked as a restorer for seven years. When the Vitra Design Museum started looking for a collection director with a restoration background – “which is extremely rare” – the job seemed tailor-made for her.

Since then, stagnation and boredom have been foreign concepts to her: “I’m constantly being exposed to new topics that expand my horizons.”

Today Susanne Graner lives with her family in Haltingen, Germany. The move from the city of Munich to the country was a deliberate one. “We wanted something totally different, to be surrounded by nature and a stone’s throw away from everything,” she says. “Just today, during breakfast, we once again realized that our home sometimes still feels like a holiday home.”

As far as the Basel region goes, she particularly appreciates the cinematic offerings and the proximity to the water. And so she and her family spend a lot of time in the Altrhein region or in the Petite Camargue near Huningue (France). She is also a big fan of the “Memory of the Rhine and Memory of Salmon” permanent exhibitions on display there: “It’s really old-school – but it’s also like a little journey through time.”

She loves places that have a story, places where there is an effort not only to preserve this story but also to use it in new ways. “The filter4 is another good example of this.”

She also recharges her batteries through travel. Together with her partner, she takes a trip in a no-frills converted VW van through remote regions, most recently through Tunisia and the Balkans, at least once a year. They have no fixed plan, and often simply follow the weather. “As the saying goes, the journey is the destination.”

While precision and structure are often required in her day-to-day work, she consciously seeks out the opposite in her personal life: simplicity, improvisation and spontaneity.

Perhaps that is exactly what explains her love for design. Because for Susanne Graner, design is not something elitist. “We’re constantly surrounded by design,” she believes. “Which cup we use, which car we drive, or how a garden is laid out – all of this is design.” All the more, she regrets that society is often too little aware of architecture and design. “I’d love it if children could learn, at a young age, how design works and why well-designed things influence our lives.”