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London’s Ron Arad pushes the boundaries of design to a mirror finish
by Thom Loree
Nickel Magazine, June 2007 -- In the early 1980s a young Israeli émigré
named Ron Arad opened a store in London’s Covent Garden that immediately attracted crowds for its inventive,
original contents, including car seats on tubular steel bases, a scrap yard seat from a Rover 200 car mounted
on a frame of bent 1930s scaffolding, and a stereo and speakers cast in concrete blocks. At the time, liberal
use of discarded materials was all the rage among London designers, but here was a distinctly playful style
that, according to one critic, was “both high-tech and ready-made.”
Nine years later, the artist, together with Caroline Thorman, founded Ron Arad Associates (RAA) in his
name in Chalk Farm, north London, in the building he currently occupies.
Ron Arad is in high demand these days, having emerged as one of the world’s most influential industrial
designers and architects. Among his most famous works are the sinuous “Bookworm” bookcase (1994), a
bestseller for the Italian design firm Kartell and originally produced as a result of experiments with
tempered steel, and the Maserati headquarters showroom in Modena, Italy (2003). He has exhibited at major
museums and galleries throughout the world, including the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York City, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Vitra Design Museum in
southwestern Germany.
Since the end of the 1980s, the maverick artist has made liberal use of nickel-containing stainless steel
in both his design and architectural work. “It varies from piece to piece, but a lot of it tends to be S31600,”
he says. “We're interested in maintaining the qualities of these pieces outdoors in wet weather, so the
corrosion resistance of stainless steel is certainly an advantage. We also use it because of the way it
behaves: you can cut it, bend it and weld it.
“Perhaps even more important are the reflections that can be achieved,” he adds. “That’s really the
central thing – how it looks. You can achieve seamless polished surfaces that reflect beautifully, and those
reflective qualities in turn do wonders to what is being reflected.”
Among his more famous creations is the “Box in Four Movements” (1994), a chair in the form of a
40-by-40-by-40-centimetre box in four sections, three of which are adjustable to any height or angle.
Ratcheted joints allow exact fixing, and the sections are hinged on a torsion bar, making the chair bouncy
and comfortable.
That same year Arad unveiled his “D Sofa,” a long, low couch in mirror-polished stainless steel, the seat
and back of which touch only at three points.
Other works of note include: a stainless steel vase (Alessi, Italy 2002); installations for “L’Esprit du
Nomade” at the Cartier Foundation in Paris (1994); “Screw,” a bar stool made out of mirror-polished aluminum
in the base and column and satin stainless steel in the seat and foot rest (Driade, 2006); the “Well-Tempered
Chair,” which makes inventive use of the “spring” properties of tempered steel held in tension by bolts
(Vitra, 1986); the “Big Easy” series of black chairs made from sheets of bent and welded steel (1988-89, then
modified in 2003), and the “Ripple Chair” (Moroso, 2005).
Arad’s latest piece, “Thumbprint,” is made of S31600 stainless steel rods and, according to its creator,
“The only way we can produce it is to apply the rods one after the other. It’s a very labour-intensive
process, but the results are striking because you get patterns that are dictated by the morphology of the
piece and not by your will.”
A true original, Arad has acquired a reputation for shattering conventions. “(His) furniture has
revitalized a discipline he considered too attached to the ‘right’ material and the ‘proper’ look,” according
to the San Francisco, California-based web site artandculture.com. “From waste to metal, from a looping steel
chair to a winding wall shelf, Arad’s designs continue to challenge the limits of acceptable living
environments.”
Arad was head of the Design Products Department at the Royal College of Art in London from 1999 to 2006
and continues to lecture on his work regularly at universities and design schools worldwide. It’s no wonder
his designs are a source of inspiration for young artists just starting out.
“He’s a teacher, a professor, but he’s always doing amazing work, pushing the boundaries and doing new
things,” states lighting designer Paul Cocksedge in a recent article for the British newspaper The
Independent. “He pushes people and he doesn't want to see things that he’s seen before.”
Thom Loree is a Toronto-based freelance writer.
Photos: Ron Arad Associates.
Ron Arad Associates
Chalk Farm, London
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