The Rover chair is the first piece of furniture designed by

industrial designer Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufactur ...

Ron Arad. It was made in 1981 as a fusion of two readymades and launched Arad's career. The chair is a

postmodernist Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

design, combining a car seat with a

structural tubing A hollow structural section (HSS) is a type of metal profile with a hollow cross section. The term is used predominantly in the United States, or other countries which follow US construction or engineering terminology. HSS members can be circu ...

frame.

History

Arad had left his employment with a firm of architects, and obtained the parts to make the chair from a

scrapyard A wrecking yard (Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian English), scrapyard (Irish, British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and ...

Chalk Farm Chalk Farm is a small urban district of north London, lying immediately north of Camden Town, in the London Borough of Camden. History Manor of Rugmere Chalk Farm was originally known as the Manor of Rugmere, an estate that was mentioned in ...

, London. The readymade chair was the first piece of furniture he produced. The red leather seat is from a

Rover P6 The Rover P6 series (named as the 2000, 2200, or 3500, depending on engine displacement) was a saloon car produced by Rover and subsequently British Leyland from 1963 to 1977 in Solihull, Warwickshire, England, UK. The P6 was the first winner o ...

and is housed in a black painted curved steel frame made from a Kee Klamp

milking stall An animal stall is an enclosure housing one or a few animals. Stalls for animals can often be found wherever animals are kept: a horse stable is often a purpose-built and permanent structure. A farmer's barn may be subdivided into animal stalls ...

. Later exhibited pieces had epoxy

lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be ca ...

ed frames. The frame provides both feet and arm rests. The Rover P6 is sometimes known as the 2000. Some reports of the chair refer to it being made using seats from the

200 __NOTOC__ Year 200 ( CC) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Severus and Victorinus (or, less frequently, year 953 '' Ab ur ...

, P5 or 90. Furniture maker Joe Hall visited Arad's

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

shop in the and then collaborated with him to make further chairs. Hall scoured the country's scrapyards for P6 seats, which cost £5£15 each and were in excellent condition. The chairs sold for £99 each in 1981, about three times the production cost. Original chairs made by Arad's One Off company have been auctioned by

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

Bonhams Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. This brought to ...

Bonhams & Butterfield Bonhams and Butterfield was a large American auction house, founded in 1865 by William Butterfield in San Francisco. It was purchased in 1999 from Bernard Osher by online auctioneer eBay for $260 million. In 2002, it was acquired from eBay by Br ...

and

Göteborgs Auktionsverk Göteborgs Auktionsverk is an auction house founded in 1681, when the magistrate in Gothenburg sought permission from the government to conduct the auction business. It is the world's second-oldest auction house in operation after the Stockhol ...

. Hundreds have been produced since 1981, fetching thousands of pounds at auctions at the turn of the century. The success of the chair, which has become an icon, launched Arad's career. The chairs were produced by One Off until 1989, and in 2008 were being produced by Vitra in two models. A two-seater version was auctioned in 2011.

Reception

Fashion designer

Jean Paul Gaultier Jean Paul Gaultier (; born 24 April 1952) is a French haute couture and prêt-à-porter fashion designer. He is described as an "enfant terrible" of the fashion industry and is known for his unconventional designs with motifs including corsets, ...

bought six chairs in 1981. They also attracted the attention of furniture manufacturer Vitra. The chair is recognised as a

design. A presenter of

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

Top Gear Top Gear may refer to: * "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission Television * ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme * ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...

sat on such a chair from 1988. The chair also featured in a television advertisement for an unrelated product. Arad's own children were breast-fed on the chair.

Exhibitions

The chair has formed part of various exhibitions, including those at London's

Design Museum The Design Museum in Kensington, London exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all funds generat ...

Barbican Art Gallery The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibi ...

Timothy Taylor Gallery Timothy Taylor is a modern and contemporary art gallery in Mayfair, London, owned and founded by the art dealer Timothy Taylor. The gallery represents artists and sells original and editioned artworks across different media. History Timothy Tay ...

, Paris's

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

and New York's

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

References

{{reflist, 30em Chairs Postmodern art Individual models of furniture