Kettal

Kettal makes furniture for outside, and nothing else. Manuel Alorda founded the company in Barcelona in 1966, after a trip to Germany convinced him that the Spanish market had no garden furniture with real design value. He started by distributing imported pieces before producing his own aluminium frames.

The shift to contemporary design dates from 2005 and the Maia collection by Patricia Urquiola. Five years later Rodolfo Dordoni's Bitta, shown at Maison&Objet in September 2010, set the brand's visual signature: rope woven over an aluminium frame, since extended into Grand Bitta. In the early 2000s Kettal had bought Hugonet and Triconfort and reorganised as a group.

The company has stayed in family hands and manufactures in Catalonia, at a plant some forty kilometres from Barcelona and at Tarragona. The catalogue goes beyond furniture: Kettal Studio's Pavilion H and Pavilion L are modular outdoor structures, and Pavilion O is built for working outdoors.

Artopia carries Kettal in Geneva. For a Geneva terrace, the question worth asking in the showroom is less about the drawing than about how the textiles and ropes hold up after a few winters.