Design of the times
Tel Aviv-born designer Ron Arad shows us around his hometown
“There may be a lot of ugliness in Tel Aviv, but it’s a great city and a fantastic destination for travellers. Like any city, it depends on who shows you around and where you go – and not driving in rush hour. My father, who is 92, still drives. He tells me, ‘Did you know, people have stopped honking in Tel Aviv?’ And I say, ‘No dad, it’s your hearing that’s stopped working.’ Everyone knows people there honk.
Tel Aviv is the world capital of Bauhaus architecture; it’s protected by Unesco. We’re currently working on a project, an apartment block on the sea, on Ha Yarkon Street (the promenade). During the initial stages of design, the planners tried to use the Unesco charter to block us. It was only when I had to justify the project that I decided to research and look back to the city in the 1930s and at the charter itself. I realised that without knowing it, I was doing a pastiche of Bauhaus anyway. We showed it to Unesco who fully supported us. We won that battle, but we had to sacrifice a floor.
I now travel to Tel Aviv several times a year because of my father – to make sure he hears the honking – and for the projects we have there. I’ve noticed my favourite places keep moving. People tell you, ‘It’s not there any more, now it’s in Ben Yehuda Street.’
Going to a café or a bar in Tel Aviv is a different experience to London. It’s more like going to a party. You’re not just with your friends, you’re with everyone. People are not embarrassed to look at you, talk to you and tell you that, for example, your hat doesn’t look good. People relate more to each other somehow. But you also get that in other cities like Berlin. Plus, the weather also allows you to sit outside cafés for most of the year.
My favourite café is Noach [93 Ahad Ha’am, +972 3 629 3799] near Rothschild Boulevard. It’s the kind of place where you pick up slightly underground arty magazines. You can read the newspapers and get Wi-Fi. There’s a little library too – and I tend to meet people there I haven’t seen for 40 years.
If you want to go to a bar, try Nanuchka [30 Lilienblum Street, +972 3 516 2254]. Every night they end up dancing on the bar.
I find myself taking photographs of old shops in Tel Aviv that are beginning to decay. You can imagine that in better economic climates, they’ll be done up.
THERE ARE NO SECRETS IN TEL AVIV. It’s not a big place. Everyone knows Neve Tzedek (one of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods that has become fashionable), everyone knows everything. Which is a nice thing because it’s all there. You walk out and you’re likely to find things. The markets are amazing, especially Carmel market. I like the main drag and the little side streets.
It’s not ‘my’ Tel Aviv any more. I read an amazing book recently called Allenby by Gadi Taub. It’s about a Tel Aviv I don’t know: all about strip clubs and dance bars and Russian body guards, security guards and bouncers. It’s like The Wire but with Israeli names. It’s fictional but amazingly researched – almost a thriller. It’s a book that in a strange way is about a place I know very, very well yet don’t know at all.
When I’m away from the city I miss watermelon and Bulgarian cheese. You don’t have to be any kind of specialist to know that food is generally better there with its amazing mix of oriental and European flavours.
All the galleries in Tel Aviv used to be on the one street, Gordon Street, but they’ve changed and moved, from basements to proper spaces. They have even launched a biennial art festival, called Art TLV [www.arttlv.com]. The Dvir Gallery – run by a friend of mine – has just opened a new space [11 Nitzana Street] with an exhibition by British artist Douglas Gordon.
I like the graffiti in Tel Aviv. Some of it is very witty. There’s a picture of Theodore Herzl, who dreamt up Israel. He famously said, “If you really want it, it is no dream”. The graffiti says: “But if you don’t want it, it’s OK.”
I’m happy with the design museum in Holon – which opens next year. It’s a little miracle that it happened – and happened within budget. Their brief was a building that they would be proud to put on a postage stamp – the mayor there is very enlightened.
The people from Holon get very insulted when you refer to the museum as being in Tel Aviv. But it is. Well, it is and it isn’t. Administratively it’s not but it’s just another slip road off the motorway. They wanted me because they are provincial and I’m successful. But the result is good and I’m very happy. I hope they’re happy and I hope people will be happy for generations.
Ron Arad was speaking to Tobi Cohen. The Design Museum Holon opens February 2010, www.dmh.org.il
A WELL-DESIGNED CAREER
1981 – Rover chair, the first piece of furniture he produced, combined a seat from a Rover 200 car and some 1930s scaffolding
1986 – Well-Tempered chair, commissioned by Swiss furniture maker Vitra
1988 – Big Easy, another of Ron Arad’s ‘volume’ chairs made from steel, shows his love for metal
1988 – Tinker chair
1993-5 – Designed Belgo, a chain of Belgian restaurants in London
1993 – Bookworm shelf, commissioned for Kartell. The plastic version became its bestselling product
1994 – Designed the Tel Aviv Opera House interior
1997 – Tom Vac chair for Vitra
1999 – New Orleans chair. A cartoonish design that echos the Big Easy but with layers of painted polyester
2008 – No Discipline, exhibition at Pompidou Centre, Paris
2009 – No Discipline, exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
2010 – Forthcoming exhibition at the Barbican arts centre in London, February to March
