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Lot Essay
The Concrete Stereo is amongst Arad’s earliest designs, and remains amongst his most iconic – an early celebration of the designer’s charged spirit – and of an iconoclastic energy that has remained undiminished to the present day. First created in 1983, approximately ten stereos were produced of which five are today retained in major international museum collections.
In retrospect, the Concrete Stereo offers lucid resonance to the social, political and artistic environment in which it was created. Arriving in London as a student at the Architectural Association, the time-worn personality of the city appealed to Arad, who observed “Part of the attraction of coming to London in the 1970s was seeing part-demolished buildings. You could still see bomb sites and re-developments with half-flattened houses revealing old wallpaper and fireplaces stacked one about the other” (Sudjic, op. cit., 1999, p. 17). Although social unease remained a contrasting feature of Britain throughout the 1980s, financial deregulation soon generated rapid wealth for Britain’s banking and financial industries, which began to trickle to many in London’s professional classes. An almost immediate consequence of the new wealth now available to the fortunate, was the rise of the consumer object – especially audio equipment – as a status symbol.
If audio equipment was now to be considered as an aspirational status symbol, then Arad’s Concrete Stereo acknowledged – and duly subverted this. The price was not inconsiderable – the present owner paid of £1,175 in June 1986 for this system commissioned directly from Arad the summer before. Technically the system delivered quality acoustics, improved – according to the current owner – if the system was used on a concrete floor, an environment no doubt appropriately suited to the shattered personality of the device. Dispensing with the sleek casings preferred by commercial manufacturers, Arad dismantled and isolated the components, some battered and apparently useless, sewn, partially-submerged and congealed within quick-drying concrete to subvert any suggestion of effective performance.
This was design as social metaphor. The Concrete Stereo is amongst Arad’s most eloquent designs, and must certainly be assessed as one of the most important and erudite works, by any creator, of this turbulent and contradictory era. Museum curators were not slow to recognise its cultural importance, and today examples may be seen in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Boijmans Museum, Rotterdam, and the Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden. An example is also held by the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, and was recently exhibited Ron Arad: Yes to the Uncommon! June – October 2018.
Christie's would like to thank Caroline Thorman of Ron Arad Associates for her assistance with the cataloguing of the present lot.
In retrospect, the Concrete Stereo offers lucid resonance to the social, political and artistic environment in which it was created. Arriving in London as a student at the Architectural Association, the time-worn personality of the city appealed to Arad, who observed “Part of the attraction of coming to London in the 1970s was seeing part-demolished buildings. You could still see bomb sites and re-developments with half-flattened houses revealing old wallpaper and fireplaces stacked one about the other” (Sudjic, op. cit., 1999, p. 17). Although social unease remained a contrasting feature of Britain throughout the 1980s, financial deregulation soon generated rapid wealth for Britain’s banking and financial industries, which began to trickle to many in London’s professional classes. An almost immediate consequence of the new wealth now available to the fortunate, was the rise of the consumer object – especially audio equipment – as a status symbol.
If audio equipment was now to be considered as an aspirational status symbol, then Arad’s Concrete Stereo acknowledged – and duly subverted this. The price was not inconsiderable – the present owner paid of £1,175 in June 1986 for this system commissioned directly from Arad the summer before. Technically the system delivered quality acoustics, improved – according to the current owner – if the system was used on a concrete floor, an environment no doubt appropriately suited to the shattered personality of the device. Dispensing with the sleek casings preferred by commercial manufacturers, Arad dismantled and isolated the components, some battered and apparently useless, sewn, partially-submerged and congealed within quick-drying concrete to subvert any suggestion of effective performance.
This was design as social metaphor. The Concrete Stereo is amongst Arad’s most eloquent designs, and must certainly be assessed as one of the most important and erudite works, by any creator, of this turbulent and contradictory era. Museum curators were not slow to recognise its cultural importance, and today examples may be seen in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Boijmans Museum, Rotterdam, and the Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden. An example is also held by the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, and was recently exhibited Ron Arad: Yes to the Uncommon! June – October 2018.
Christie's would like to thank Caroline Thorman of Ron Arad Associates for her assistance with the cataloguing of the present lot.