Israeli-British architect and designer Ron Arad has been appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, in King Charles III’s birthday honors list. The award recognizes his outstanding contribution to British society and culture, and comes after more than four decades of work that helped blur the lines between art, architecture, design and technology.
Arad told ynet he was pleased with the honor, but said another recent award mattered more to him personally. “I was very honored to receive the Bezalel Distinguished Alumnus Award last year, which touched me more personally,” he said. He also addressed his identity directly: “I don’t think I got the award because I am Israeli, and not despite being Israeli. I have had a studio in London for decades. And whoever has a problem with me working both in Israel and around the world, that is their problem.”
Born in Tel Aviv in 1951, Arad studied industrial design at Bezalel in Jerusalem, then architecture at London’s Architectural Association, graduating in 1979. He opened his first London studio in 1981 and has lived and worked there ever since, while maintaining a close professional link to Israel. He first drew international attention in the early 1980s with the Rover Chair, made from Rover car seats and recycled industrial steel. His work later included pieces for Vitra and Kartell, the Belgo restaurant in London, the Tom Vac chair, and the Bookworm shelf from 1993.
Arad said his career has been driven by curiosity rather than a single discipline. That approach shaped his 2009 retrospective, called “No Discipline,” shown at MoMA in New York and later at Centre Pompidou in Paris. In architecture, his best-known Israeli project is the Design Museum Holon, opened in 2010, though he also designed the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center foyer in 1994 and has worked on ToHa towers in Tel Aviv, with ToHa 1 completed in 2019 and ToHa 2 still under construction. His recent projects include “House of Shlomit” in Afula, completed in 2025, and he was chosen in 2017 to design Britain’s national Holocaust memorial in London.
