This is the garden furniture that has won the National Design Award

This year will be marked forever on the calendar of Point, the Spanish outdoor design furniture company, and not just because of having. This 2020 the company celebrates 100 years since its foundation, from when it became a small wicker braiding workshop to one of the most important industries in the Marina Alta (in Alicante) and an international benchmark. In addition, to close the circle, this year it will also collect the 2019 National Design Award from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, for its contribution to improving society and people’s quality of life.

The company, belonging to the Pons family, has a most interesting historical legacy, since since the 1920s they began to bet on wicker braiding and purely handmade work. Today, Mario Ruiz, current creative director, places the brand as a benchmark in outdoor furniture design, since throughout its history it has collaborated with international designers for projects around the world, including Gabriel Teixidó, Christophe Pillet or Francesc Rifé. Some works that have been reflected in their figures, since in 2018, Point’s turnover exceeded 8.5 million euros, and its export, that same year, amounted to 78.10%.

Point furniture.

The commitment to design remains in the DNA of the brand. The “savoir faire” in the manufacture of the pieces and the respect for craftsmanship (each woven Point sofa requires forty hours of meticulous craftsmanship, each chair no less than six). However, as the firm explains, an important commitment to innovation has generated the development of new materials that allow it to adapt to current demands, even patenting its own fibers and researching the materials of the future.

Point furniture.

A round-trip

The dream of José Pons Pedro, the grandfather of the current owners, began on a ship bound for Argentina, when he was just a boy, in the first decade of the 20th century. There he had to emigrate, alone, and get to work. And there he learned a profession, the design and weaving of wicker and other natural fibers, such as rattan, and he conceived something much deeper: a family and business project, of design and innovation that, a century later, is still as vigorous as in its beginnings.

José Pons Pedro, founder of Point

Back in his town, Gata de Gorgos, in Alicante, José founded, in 1920, a furniture workshop applying the craft techniques learned in Argentina. This is how the wicker arrived in the Marina Alta region. He trained and employed his neighbors and began to realize the dream. The company specialized in the manufacture of chairs and products for the home, decorative furniture and lamps with a strong component of design.

The fifties, a new vision of design

Point began its transformation in the fifties, with the second generation in charge, thanks to the vision of Juan Bautista Pons, son of José. It was he who promoted growth and internationalization, increasingly emphasizing the importance of design.

Furniture catalogue.

It is in these years when they develop a new field of creation with a new work material, rattan, and they surround themselves with the best master craftsmen who hand weave this fiber. And that is when internationalization begins. In a first phase, through export, later opening its own assembly plant in the United States. The strategy was to be as close as possible to its new market.

The sixties, the explosion of creativity

The company is consolidated internationally, in the sixties, thanks to the creativity of Gabriel Pons, designer and artist. His work with natural fibers, especially rattan, paid off in elegant and contemporary pieces, which made Point a benchmark in Valencian design. Innovation also materialized in the pioneering and open use of colors and upholstery and in the fusion of rattan with new materials. The brand took a qualitative leap. This opens the doors to new markets such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Factory years 60.

Around 500 employees then work in the Gata de Gorgos factory. Point becomes the flag of the best outdoor furniture design. The founder remains in the factory and manages the company, but also designs furniture, true to his spirit as an expert craftsman of wicker and rattan.

Point workers from the 60s.

The seventies mark the definitive modernization of rattan furniture. Through strategic alliances, the Middle East, Central America or North Africa become Point’s new markets.

The eighties and nineties: a successful reinvention

Specialization marks this decade. Point decides to focus specifically on outdoor furniture. The reason was a crisis of the raw material, rattan in exporting countries. The company thus rethinks its production and its strategy, starting to manufacture in Vietnam. This marked a big step in the internationalization strategy. What might seem like a risky adventure, however, opened the doors of Asia to the brand.

Production years 70.

At all times, each product retains its values ​​and, for this reason, they continue to be handcrafted pieces made by expert craftsmen, but designed to be able to adapt to trends and needs.

At the end of the nineties, Point develops Shintotex, a new recyclable fiber, highly resistant and flexible, with which they develop a large part of their production.