Ron Arad
Ron Arad was born in Tel Aviv in 1951, the son of a photographer and a painter. Before moving to London in 1973, he studied for three years at the Jerusalem Academy of Art. In London, he studied under Peter Cook and B Tschumi at the Architectural Association for several years before establishing One Off Ltd in 1981 with Caroline Thorman in Covent Garden, London (a design studio, workshop and showroom).
His first success was with a range of furniture and interior structures in tube and cast iron fittings, as well as his Rover Chair, the vacuum-packed Transformer Chair and the remote-controlled Aerial Light. His later work explores the use of tempered steel, first in the Well-Tempered Chair and later in the popular Bookworm.
In 1989, he founded Ron Arad Associates, Architecture and Design practice with Caroline Thorman. By 1993 he'd incorporated One Off into Ron Arad Associates. The next year he established Ron Arad Studios in Como to continue to expand on the production studio pieces as previously produced in the London workshops. The facilities at the new studio allowed for the creation of such pieces as Box in Four Movements and RTW (a free-rolling large wheel with inner shelving that always remains parallel to the floor).
He is the head of product design at the Royal College of Arts. He's also run several workshops for students, including those at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, Vitra Farm in France and Ravenna in Italy. He continues to lecture on his work regularly at universities and schools worldwide.
