Ron Arad (b. 1951)

Begun in 1988, Ron Arad's Volume series developed from his mischievous exploration of the opposing concepts of empty and full, soft and hard, and light and heavy. Using sheet steel cut from a flat pattern and beaten and welded by hand, the Big Easy represented a mechanical and visual departure from Arad's earlier experiments and established his highly idiosyncratic design language.
The evolving series of Volumetric chairs began in 1986, when Arad was commissioned by the Swiss furniture manufacturer, Vitra, to create the 'Well-Tempered Chair', intended for serial production. This early design exploited the naturally-sprung properties of sheet steel to create a seat whose outline was suggestive of a traditionally upholstered lounge chair. The Volume series of two years later, produced at Arad's London workshop One Off Ltd., dispensed with any illusionary comfort, and proposed instead the hazy hand-beaten impression of a chair, the free-hand form of which was delineated by the sketchily outlined seams, ensuring that no two chairs were created alike.