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Now celebrating its 50th year of existence, the Aram Store is a perfect reflection of the sensibilities of its owner and originator, Zeev Aram, who has never compromised his beliefs in design. Architecturally trained, he chose instead to champion outstanding design by relative unknowns, and hoped would-be buyers would share his beliefs. Fifty years on, it’s probably safe to say they did...

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Words Corinne Julius Portraits Ivan Jones

Zeev Aram doesn't suffer fools gladly, he also abhors pretension and the brouhaha that surrounds a lot of contemporary design. This is not the curmudgeonly attitude of age, but the views of someone who has been a part of contemporary design history and indeed has helped to write it.

Aram design project: the CEO's office of Cogent Elliot Advertising, Solihull, 1967

Many design classics, especially Italian ones, were first introduced to the UK, and in some instances to a world market, by Aram. In addition he has almost singlehandedly reframed the appreciation of Eileen Gray, but it isn't only established greats that he has championed. He has been a supporter of new talent, showing the work of new designers long before it was fashionable or good marketing to do so, and in the process has promoted the talents of the likes of Jasper Morrison, Konstantin Grcic and Thomas Heatherwick as new graduates. His design practice and his shop have changed not just what was available, but also the aspirations not only of his own clients but of the public at large.

Aram design project: Simpsons of Piccadilly, 1965

A short, barrel-chested man, with a slightly rolling sailor's gait, Aram was born in Transylvania in 1931. His parents ran a hotel and restaurant, but left Romania for Palestine when he was nine. After five months in a British camp he was released to attend a boarding school on a kibbutz, where he received an agricultural training and 'lost any refugee mentality'. At a loose end when he left school at 15, he fortuitously found work with an architect who was designing a restaurant for his father, and Aram learned to draw and do perspectives. 'I liked it but my mind was somewhere else,' he says.

Bibendum chair: Aram was intergral to bringing Eileen Gray into the public consciousness

When he was 16 he lied about his age to sign up the for the navy, and on competing his national service was selected for a new naval academy. After a successful seven years at sea he changed tack: 'I loved the navy and loved the sea, but I decided to study architecture.' In 1957 he came to Central School of Art and design in London to study interiors and furniture design.

Eileen Gray's Bonaparte chair: after winning Gray's confidence, Aram was granted the worldwide right to make and distribute
her designs

He loved it and in typical Aram style sucked up the most from the course, studying every extra class he could and many he officially couldn't, particularly enjoying his contact with sculptor William Turnbull and architectural historian Reyner Banham. The latter introduced him to the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier and a lifetime of enjoying their modernist designs. On graduation he worked for architect Ernö Goldfinger ('It was a wonderful, wonderful training, but he was a terrible guy') then for Basil Spence and Andrew Renton. 'I was selecting furniture for projects, and apart from Hille furniture there was nothing worth having.

The Brick Screen by Eileen Gray

I said there must be something better -- I'll do it myself,' he recalls. In November 1963, just three years after graduating, he decided to start up on his own. 'We were one of the first -- if I can give it this high faulting name -- mutli-disciplinary design offices.

The Blue Marine rug by Eileen Gray

Now it's obvious; then it was not. I got the bug from doing all the extra courses at Central. A designer has to have an interest in everything around him. He can't partition his mind and his attention. He can't just look at the furniture and not be interested in what it sits in,' he says. His clients eventually included major companies for which he designed complete buildings and installations. 'We did everything: interiors, furniture, graphics, lighting, anything. We had no experience, but we had the will.

We carried no baggage on our backs, of you mustn't do this or you mustn't do that. We could be more daring and more experimental, and therefore more interesting. Some clients bought it, some didn't. I never chased work. We always had work and we weren't greedy,' he tells me.

Another of Aram's favourite pieces, the Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer, named after Kandinsky

But first, he says, he had to find good furniture, and by that he means furniture that he liked. In January 1964 he visited the Cologne Furniture Fair, but left with nothing, refusing then as now to compromise his standards. His next stop -- Milan, where he is now a regular -- was a success. 'We got Breuer, Magistretti, A & PG Castiglioni. Now they are household names, then nobody here knew them,' he says proudly. He cares passionately about the designs and the designers, most of whom he has come to know personally.

He started showing to a shocked public in April 1964 when he opened his office-cum-showroom in the King's Road, west London.

'People were horrified by the furniture. I used to sit in the Wimpy across the road to see their reactions. If they hated it, I didn't mind. At least it was a reaction,' he laughs. What he did mind then and minds now is a lack of interest, curiosity or desire to understand. That goes especially for designers and journalists.

Another of Aram's favourite pieces, the Wassily chair by Marcel Breuer, named after Kandinsky

His first sale at the shop, to the photographer Claud Virgin, was a Wassily chair. 'We didn't know how to sell it or wrap it. He carried it away on his head. We didn't sell another thing for three months,' he recounts. Then as now Aram stuck to his guns, refusing to stock more commercial pieces. In 1965 he introduced four items of furniture by Le Corbusier.

He expanded the King's Road space, but rents went up and in 1973 he moved to Covent Garden. By the end of the Eighties he had decided to close down his design office, in part as a reaction to some clients' lack of understanding of the depth of his own commitment to any project ( 'I put more in than just money'). In 2002 Aram moved to the four-storey Aram Store building in Drury Lane, which for the past 12 years he has run with Ruth and David, two of his four children. 'I am not interested in something that is just commercial. I don't care what the next big thing in the market is going to be. My interest was and is to show fantastic furniture by fantastic designers,' he says. That in part is what makes Aram, who can come across as slightly prickly, so endearing. 'I don't buy a chair because I can sell it. You sieve through and eventually you find some little nugget. You present it properly and hope that eventually you will find some people who agree with your selection.'

His particular loves are somewhat contradictory -- the Castiglioni Sanluca chair and the Breuer Wassily chair, both of which he imported in 1964. He says: 'They come from two very different brilliant minds; the one imaginative, lyrical, the other methodical. The Breuer sold, the Castiglioni hardly, but I still think it's a fantastic chair.' The store still sells both and always gives details of the designs and the designer as a conscious exercise in education and an all-round design experience.

Now and then: the current Aram Store and the first showroom - Aram would sit across the road to watch people's reactions
to the furniture

In 1969 Aram read an article in Domus about Eileen Gray and then in 1972 he went to a small show of her work at the Heinz Gallery, organised by Alan Irvine, who offered to convey Aram's interest to Gray. Aged 93, she came to the showroom. Aram won her confidence with his customary blend of chutzpah, charm, respect and passion. 'She wasn't bitter. She never said she was forgotten, but that's the message she gave,' Aram recalls.

Ultimately Gray trusted Aram so much that she gave him the world-wide rights to produce and distribute her designs. With his habitual zeal, he has brought not only her pieces, but knowledge of her, to an international audience.

Aram is very clear in what he likes and respects, but will always look at new work. He remains intensely enthusiastic and curious, getting the most out of every new experience. 'I am fair, but I can't stand pretence or bullshit. I don't suffer fools gladly, though it does depend where they're coming from. My temperament is kaleidoscopic. If you turn it this way it's nice, if that way, it's not,' he laughs. 'I am very bad at hiding how I feel. I am basically shy and therefore sometimes the aggression is there to hide it. I am too direct and can't dress things up.'

He is forthright, his strong opinions based on his considerable experience. He doesn't back away from expressing them, enjoying a good discussion. He does that best over a meal with a glass of malt whisky, revelling in stories, many of them extremely funny and revealing, but sadly often off the record about design's so-called stars. He has known most of them since their early days. He is surprisingly reticent to acknowledge his own contribution, despite his OBE in the New Year's Honours list.

Now and then: the current Aram Store and the first showroom - Aram would sit across the road to watch people's reactions
to the furniture

He consistently puts his money where his mouth is, selecting designs and designers because he rates them. That also extends to his love of seeking out new designers. 'I like their freshness, slightly ignorant creativity, which allows them to make a mistake or not be perfect, yet achieve something which is fresh, new like a new day. It gives me a fillip. It is so wonderful, especially when they enjoy my enjoyment,' he says. For years he religiously visited all of the graduate shows. He recounts with glee how disappointed he was in Manchester one year, till a young student begged him to spare a few minutes. It was Thomas Heatherwick, whose potential Aram immediately recognised. He showed the work, as he did those of a stream of young designers, never profiting from the exhibitions, but always gaining the respect and gratitude of those he selected.

He made the 3rd floor of the Aram Store into a non-profitmaking gallery space. His first curator Daniel Charny, and now Heloise Parkes, have consistently mounted some of the most adventurous and interesting design exhibitions in Britain. Shows on contemporary jewellery, book binding, paper, working with prototypes, are not what appeal to the majority of shoppers, who visit the store for furniture, lighting and accessories, but they are about aspects of design that Aram wants people to be exposed to. 'It is nothing to do with business. We don't take a commission; we pass on enquiries to the designers,' Aram says.

One of the shows that excited him most was Shiro Kuramata's in 1981. 'The buzz for me was the same as showing Corbusier. I loved the pieces. I wanted to show people. I hope they liked it. It wasn't about money,' he says. Maintaining the independence of the gallery from the store in prime retail-selling space is remarkable and bloody-minded, rather like Aram himself.

Zeev Aram in his eponymous store

Working with his children is not always easy. They share many values, but not always the same commercial viewpoints. Aram respects their qualities and says :'For me the period of working with my children is like paradise. I trust them completely. It's unconditional. They make mistakes, but I make so many.' It doesn't show.