Hasta La Ideas

News: London retailer and furniture designer Zeev Aram (pictured) is among figures from the design world awarded in the New Year Honours 2014.

Others on the list of those to be honoured include interior designer Ilse Crawford for services to interior design and Kevin McCloud, presenter of the television programme Grand Designs and founder of eco-housing development company Hab Housing, for services to sustainable design and energy saving property refurbishment. Both will become a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE).

Sculptor Antony Gormley is to become one of the Knights Bachelor for services to the arts and Erica Bolton of PR firm Bolton and Quinn will be awarded an OBE for services to the arts. Unusually, this is the second year in a row that no architects have been honoured.

Zeev Aram will become an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE), a title in the British honours system that recognises “a distinguished regional or county-wide role in any field”, for services to design and architecture.

The founder of the Aram Store, now located in London’s Covent Garden, moved from Israel to London in 1957 and studied design at the Central School of Art and Design. In 1964 he opened a showroom on fashionable Kings Road in London where he became the first to introduce pieces by iconic designers including Achille Castiglioni, Marcel Breuer, Le Corbusier and Eileen Gray to the UK.

He holds the worldwide license to produce work by Irish modernist Gray, a contemporary of Le Corbusier who was revered for her work at the time but almost forgotten until Aram rediscovered her. He’s recently launched a website about her work and extraordinary life, which is now being made into a feature film.

The New Year Honours are presented on 1 January each year “in recognition of the achievements and service of extraordinary people right across the United Kingdom”. This is the first year that more women than men have been awarded.

Last year industrial designer Kenneth Grange received a knighthood and in 2012 Jonathan Ive and Marc Newson were both honoured, along with architect John McAslan.

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