Akaba

This progressive Spanish furniture company was founded on four major principles: a commitment to design, an international outlook, a distinctive corporate identity, and the creation of new jobs. Many of its designs were avant-garde and conceived by prestigious designers such as Javier Mariscal and Santiago Miranda (See King-Miranda Associati). From the 1990s the company began to concentrate on the contract market and its success was marked by a considerable expansion in scale: it grew from three employees in 1986 to 85 in 2000. More than 50 per cent of its output is exported around the world. Many of Akaba's designs have been geared to transportation. In Spain these have included seating by Rafael Moneo for Seville Airport, furniture for the new Airport Terminal at Bilbao, and benches for the Bilbao Underground and in Germany the architect Helmut Jahn designed the Nomad seating for the new Köln-Bonn Airport Terminal. The company's designs have featured widely in the design press as well as a number of prestigious exhibitions, including the Nouvelles Tendances exhibition at the Pompidou Centre, Paris in 1987, where the complete Mariscal Furniture collection was shown. The company has also received a number of leading Spanish design prizes including the Delta de Ora award for the Hola chair in 1997 and the National Award for the company's professional development in 2000.