Ramón Bigas

Spanish

Ramón Bigas (Barcelona, 1941) is a Catalan industrial designer and artist who has worked across art and design since 1958. He began studying physics at the University of Barcelona before turning to creative work, and set up his first studio, Estudi 22, with Oleguer Armengol, taking on interiors, graphic design, and industrial design. He later formed the Globus team.

In the early 1980s he co-founded AD Associate Designers with Pep Sant, the Barcelona studio behind many of his public projects, which ran until 1995. Across his career he has completed more than 3,000 projects, among them the exterior of Spain's first AVE high-speed train, the cauldron for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, the Micro lamp of 1986, the Ramón chair of 1975, the interior of the Barcelona Stock Exchange, and the identity of PortAventura.

He was president of the FAD from 1995 to 2001 and received its medal in 2002. He also exhibits as an artist, including a 2016 show of paintings at the Societat de l'Amistat in Cadaqués.

For Bigas, design is not pure invention but a way of making ideas feasible. Beauty comes from putting a complex problem in order, and the key is to break down every component that surrounds a product.

That method is why he moves so easily between scales—from a high-speed train to a kitchen chair. Each project starts as a problem to take apart, not a shape to style.

The Ramón chair shows it best: its most striking detail, the crossed bar under the seat, is also the one doing the structural work.