Ron Arad was brought up in Israel and studied art before training as an architect at the Architectural Association in London. In 1981 he set up his own shop, One Off, in London in which he displayed furniture of his own design, made in his own workshop.
Since then he has moved from success to success, his prolific and innovative ideas making him one of the world's favourite designers. His work has been widely exhibited and published; he has done showrooms in Milan and Tokyo as well as in the UK, and a One Off showroom opened in New York in 1987.
In his recorded talk he tells of his use of ambiguity to surprise people. He likes to contradict their expectations and he also likes to surprise himself with the outcome of his designs. In both his furniture and his interiors structure is always revealed, and colour is provided by the materials used but never by paint.
Whatever problem he is tackling, it becomes part of his continuing research into the uses of materials and construction, each invention leading to the next.
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