Aram celebrates sixty years promoting modern design
Aram, the celebrated destination for furniture, lighting, and home accessories in Covent Garden, reaches an impressive milestone in 2024, celebrating sixty years as a successful family-run design business. Launched by the late Zeev Aram in 1964, we commemorate our sixtieth year by launching a new gallery space and introducing a special limited edition of the Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer, the first design Zeev sold at the original Aram Designs showroom on the King’s Road.
Zeev Aram’s first space was a revolutionary furniture showroom on London’s King's Road, and the first of its kind in the UK, showcasing international modern furniture and lighting. Later, Zeev also collaborated with and supported the renowned Irish architect and furniture designer Eileen Gray, a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture. Gray's extraordinary work had been mostly forgotten until Zeev came forward and championed it. Daughter Ruth and son Daniel joined Zeev in 1999 to take the company forward. Sadly, Ruth passed away in 2018, followed by Zeev in 2021.
Their remarkable legacy now lives on under the guidance of Daniel, supported by an experienced team of 25 people who continue to promote the best brands the design world has to offer. Aram Designs Ltd also holds the worldwide license for Eileen Gray designs, and the showroom displays the best in modern and contemporary design from the most prominent manufacturers, including Vitra, Knoll, Walter Knoll, Cassina, B&B Italia and USM, to name but a few.
To celebrate Aram’s design legacy, we have worked with Knoll to create a limited edition of Marcel Breuer's iconic Wassily chair. The chair was the first product sold at Aram Designs when it opened its doors in 1964, and we will have 24 chairs in a special edition black canvas. Each chair will have a unique ARAM 60 2024 stamp.
The Wassily chair was first conceived in 1925 and soon became a design classic, easily regarded as one of the most recognisable designs of the Bauhaus movement. Zeev Aram was also known to say that if he could only keep one piece of furniture from his collection, it would be the Wassily due to its beautiful design and historical significance as probably the most important pre-cursor to modern furniture design.
Zeev Aram with the Wassily chair in the 1960s, photographed by Alexander Agor.
"We are thrilled to reach this special anniversary by celebrating Aram’s past, present and future. The new gallery space, which will host exciting exhibitions this year and beyond, encapsulates Aram’s future as it continues to champion the best-emerging design talent. At the same time, the special edition Wassily chair pays tribute to the remarkable history of the store. We are excited to share this milestone with the design world and look forward to many more anniversaries to come."
Daniel Aram, Managing Director
Now4Then
The Aram Gallery was established in 2002 at the Covent Garden location to provide a space for individuals to discover new and experimental design. From the beginning, the gallery promoted innovative concepts from both established and emerging designers, and it quickly became a significant part of London's design scene.
The Aram Gallery closed after the death of Zeev in 2021; however, following a rebrand and to coincide with the 60th year, we will launch a new gallery space in a more prominent lower ground floor location. Building on the legacy created by Zeev Aram and the gallery curators with whom he worked closely, we considered deeply how to revive this vital and non-commercial part of the company to be appropriate for a new era. This fresh execution will see Aram host two exhibitions in the anniversary year. The first of which will be a carefully curated show by interior designer and gallerist Max Radford, titled 'Now4Then'. The exhibition will feature all new work by emerging furniture and lighting designers based in the UK and will run for six weeks, starting on Friday, 3 May 2024.
To curate the exhibition, Max Radford was given the brief inspired by an original quote from Zeev Aram, who said,
"I decided that I will try my best to bring to the public designs which are contemporary, [and] correct for the time."
In response to the exhibition brief, Max Radford said,
"In the same way that Zeev was showcasing international contemporary design to the attention of the UK public, the new gallery space endeavours to re-platform UK-based designers to the global public. Zeev’s notion of appropriateness and truth of design is related to the exact time we inhabit, which is never truer now. In an uncertain economic time on the edge of an Anthropocene Epoch – what feels suitable for this moment in time is sustainably aware boundary-pushing design."
The designers exhibiting include Amelia Stevens, Andu Masebo, Charlie Humble Thomas, Eddie Olin, EJR Barnes, Freddy Tuppen, Isabel Alonso, Jaclyn Pappalardo, John Henshaw and Lewis Kemmenoe, among others.