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Ron Arad
Combining playful forms and experiments with advanced technologies, RON ARAD (1951) has emerged as one of the most influential designers of our time. Born in Tel Aviv, he moved to London in 1973 to study architecture and made his name in the early 1980s as a self-taught designer-maker of sculptural furniture. He now works across both design and architecture.
Consistently inventive and challenging, Ron Arad has studiously avoided categorisation by curators and critics throughout his career. He never wanted a profession as such – whether as architect, product or furniture designer – but his reputation in each of these fields is formidable; as the outsider continually questioning established practices and institutions.
After studying at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem he moved to London in 1973 to study under Peter Cook and Bernard Tschumi at the Architectural Association, and graduated in 1979. brief spell in an architect’s office convinced him to set up his own company, One Off, in 1981 with Caroline Thorman, who has been his business partner ever since; followed by the One Off showroom in Covent Garden in 1983. In 1989, they started Ron Arad Associates in Chalk Farm, north London in the building they occupy today.
Ron Arad’s designs create a path that takes him fromrecycled materials at the very start of his career where he fused a scrap yardseat from a Rover 200 car with Kee-Klamp scaffolding, through concrete tocomputerized manufacturing processes. He taught himself to weld and beat steeland then experimented with highly polished metal finishes. Ron Arad’s team rapidly became expert in various processes: from ready-made and welded heavy metal toextruded plastic and rapid prototyping.
It is difficult to know in which direction he will turn next. As Ron Arad once said in an interview: “I’m afraid of boredom, fundamentalists, philistines”. So anything is possible.
