Tailor My Tom Vac

To celebrate 15 years of Ron Arad’s Tom Vac chair, Vitra has invited over 20 architecture and design studios to reinterpret the iconic design.

The full collection of one-off chairs formed a public exhibition called “Tailor My Tom Vac”, at Vitra’s London space during Clerkenwell Design Week 2014.

The brief was “To explore both novelty and memory in design, art and architecture”, which echoes Arad’s original brief from architecture magazine Domus in 1997 – Arad responded by creating a towering totem pole in Milan made from 100 of the stacked chairs (subscribe to Domus Digital Archive to read the full article about the project).

“Tailor My Tom Vac” invites the participating designers to approach the brief as a pure concept, with no restrictions on medium or discipline, in line with Arad’s original response. Ron Arad says: “It’s very interesting to see other people taking the same idea and expressing their responses. Inspiration comes from strange places sometimes, so it’s good to know that Tom Vac is being used as a starting point as well as being an end product.”

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BDP, Reel-ly?

ID:SR, Get into the Groove

Left: Alford Hall Monaghan Morris, W25EZ. Right: Jump Studios with Millenium Models, All Decked Out

Make Architects, The Reflect-On

Make Architects, The Reflect-On

Left: El Ultimo Grito Studio, The Rise and Fall of the User. Right: Morag Myerscough & Luke Morgan, King of the Swingers

Left: M Moser Associates, the udder tom. Right: Hawkins Brown, Pamela

Left: Woods Bagot, MEMORY VAC. Right: Emulsion Architecture, Fathom It!

Studio TILT, Transformin Objects into Memories

[re]design, More Over Rover

GMW Architects, Tom Voud (Where Tom Gone?)

Left: Farrels, Tom Vac On Off. Right: HLW International Ltd with TMJ, Those were the Days

HLW International Ltd with TMJ, Those were the Days

Scott Brownrigg Ltd, mVac+-don't sit, just listen...

Taylor My Tom Vac
Organized by: Vitra
Tom Vac designed by: Ron Arad
Participants: Aecom, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, BDP, CJCT Studios, Coffey Architects, El Ultimo Grito Studio, Emulsion Architecture, Farrells, GMW Architects, Hawkins Brown, HLW International, Jump Studios, Make Architects, MCM Architecture Ltd, M Moser Associates, Morag Myerscough, Morey Smith, [re]design, Scott Brownrigg Ltd, ID:SR, Studio TILT, Woods Bagot

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Tailor My Tom Vac

To celebrate 15 years of Ron Arad’s Tom Vac chair, Vitra has invited over 20 architecture and design studios to reinterpret the iconic design.

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