Abdelkader Abdi, born in Algiers in march, 18, 1955, is an designer for more than forty-five years, he graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Algiers in 1977, then from the School of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1979, winner from his debut, in 1981, of the silver SM at the Paris Furniture Fair, Abdi Abdelkader has gained international recognition, particularly since his decisive meeting, at the beginning of the 1990s, with the Italian maestro Alessandro Mendini, at whose invitation he will collaborate on several occasions. A multi-award winning designer, he was notably a professor at the School of Fine Arts in Algiers from 1982 to 1989 and taught at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris from 1989 to 1991, at the ECM (Study and Creation of furniture), Paris–Conflans school of architecture from 1993 to 1997 and at the Institut d'Arts Visuels d'Orléans, from 1991. He was curator and scenographer of the Hommage à Picasso exhibition in Algiers in 1987 and artistic director for the company Forum Design in Seoul in 1990, lemarchand in 2000 and Dacryl in 2013. In 2009, the international center for glass art in Meisenthal (CIAV) invited him for research work.

Architect Marcelo Joulia captions a photograph of Abdi signed by Jean Ber "Abdi is like a charcoal drawing, gestural, unique, and sometimes fragile." Borrowing memories linked to his hometown: Algiers, and each time he imagines a new piece, he plunges back into his childhood in the shadow of the casbah: "All my memories are engraved in my hard drive", reads -on on Young Africa (2010). From his childhood in Algiers, he remembers the alleys where he loved to wander and the shops of artisans whom he watched for hours weaving, embroidering, forging, pushing leather or working with wood. From his repeated observations his vocation was born and it was naturally that Algiers and his childhood interfered in his creations, the tagines and couscoussiers that he designed for the prestigious Alessi house and whose lids were enhanced with a crescent moon. orange or those vases whose curve recalls that of minarets.

Using materials such as metal, Dacryl, glass or stainless steel, Abdelkader Abdi develops a vocabulary that does not lack formal audacity and playfulness, as evidenced by his creations, notably the comfortable sheep chairs dressed all in white. created in the early 90s at the request of the architect and designer Alessandro Mendini, Abdi's sheep chairs were selected and presented in Milan with the creations of the British Michael Young, the Dutch Jurgen Bey, the French Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and the Italian Anna Gili.

Abdelkader Abdi embodies excellence and innovation in the field of design. His remarkable career is marked by numerous successes and prestigious awards, which testify to his exceptional talent and his significant contribution to the world of contemporary design. Among its many awards is the prestigious Silver SM Prize at the Paris Furniture Fair in 1981, which marked the beginning of an unprecedented series of successes. In 1992, he was awarded the Golden Number at the Paris Furniture Fair, further recognition of his creative genius and influence in the design industry. The year 2001 was particularly memorable for Abdi, who was honored with several major awards. He won the International Press Prize for Contemporary Furniture Criticism in Paris, as well as the Innovation Prize at the Paris Furniture Fair, highlighting his commitment to originality and quality. Its reputation goes beyond national borders, as evidenced by its Special Mention in the international "Nomad light" competition in Italy, thus demonstrating its reach and influence on a global scale. In 2002, Abdi Abdelkader was honored with the ViA Prize in Paris, an award which recognizes his lasting impact on the contemporary design landscape. Additionally, he was named the best French designer of the year by the UK's Wallpaper Magazine, the ultimate recognition of his exceptional talent and influence in the world of design.

Abdi Abdelkader has a series of creations and exhibitions, notably Les Années Abdi scheduled for spring 2003 at the INA (the Institute of the Arab World) in Paris, which presented 20 years of designer career. Her creations borrow colors, shapes and inspiration from oriental culture while asserting a profound originality, and a singular sense of humor, she aimed to "go beyond the mirror and cross appearances to reach the essence even expression, multiple and mixed expressions of Abdi's work", are presented The Rocca chest of drawers, encrusted with nails, a little Saharan. A stack of "couscoussières" revisited for Alessi. The El Mondo pouf. Soliflores blown in Murano… So many disparate pieces by Abdi Abdelkader.
The exxposition had received the support of the Museo Alessi and the collaboration of the companies Alessi, Octant and Vidon-Gerlier. The curatorship was entrusted to Gilles de Bure, journalist and author of numerous works on art, architecture and design.

The 2001 edition of the Paris International Furniture Fair was an opportunity to see his Tool Box, another creation by Abdi for Roset Cinna, a deployable table, on several levels, inspired by tool boxes or even storage boxes. grandmothers sewing. Artistic director of a furniture collection for Lemarchand, called "Pulsions", Abdi was previously invited Pierangelo Caramia, Christian Ghion, Bernard Justin, Bruno Houssin, four creators who were assigned specific product typologies and two materials: birch wood and metal with an aluminum finish. The result was a product line for Lemarchand.

Abdi's work was visible at the exhibition "25 years of furniture workshop: yesterday today tomorrow", in 200 where the National School of Decorative Arts (Ensad) presented the creations of around fifty furniture creators , all passed through his workshop which was the first dedicated to the design of furniture in an art school. On this subject Jean-Claude Maugirard wrote in 2003 in the catalog "New generation Algerian design": "The furniture workshop of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs that I created at the end of 1977 thanks to the wishes of Michel Tourlière, director of the school, and in support of the French Furniture industries, received graduate students from the different departments of the school but also, already candidates coming from other schools in France or abroad (…) Abdi, Yamo and Chérif arrived successively and in this order at the workshop, with their baggage of certainty. Trained in interior architecture or industrial design, their way of approaching furniture was very linked to their professional knowledge (…) Abdi's totem furniture, Yamo's lighting, Chérif's seats have in fact disrupted the signs commonly admin in the furniture world of those years. Today, international creation has taken up the torch of this right to expression, often forgetting that it owes it to a few pioneers including Abdi, Yamo and Chérif. undoubtedly. »

Abdi's enthusiasm for the material Dacryl, a high-end synthetic glass, acrylic-based, transparent, which lends itself to an infinite variety of colors, textures and inclusions, was born from the friendship established between the designer Abdi and the creator of the Dacryl material, Gilbert Meyer. The 2006 exhibition at the Galerie Luc Queyrel (Paris) reveals the undeniable talent of the Algerian designer, whether it is the "Maestro" chest of drawers and the short or elongated vases, in black and white strata or in colors, of its modular bookcase in interchangeable color plates and with a remarkable finish. The Mamia Bretesché gallery also showed, in 2007, the attractive vase-candleholders in blown glass and 120 cm high minaret vases, in Dacryl, with their alternating bands of colors inspired by the mosques of Damascus in Cordoba. Also made of Dacryl plates in interchangeable colors, its bookcase is assembled in modules and adapts to all spaces.

In 2009, the Center Pompidou in Paris presented an exhibition "VIA Design 3.0". In particular, we could see a cabinet from 1991 called Houn (Edition Via Diffusion), a creation by Abdi. This was among a selection of forty prototypes presented among the pieces "the most representative of French design applied to the living environment" and intended, in part, to join the design fund of the Center Pompidou, already rich in some 3,000 pieces . .

In 2013, at the initiative of the Playtime Paris trade show, "Play With Design" was "born from the desire to offer new sources of reflection on the world of design for children". Abdi was there with the Smala, an evolving structure combining elements assembled by straps and "offering the possibility of sitting, rolling, sliding, twisting, stretching, crawling, wallowing…". The first edition had as its theme gaming in all its forms.

In 2003, he was appointed curator of the exhibition "New generation Algerian design" presented at the VIA from January 9 to February 23, 2003 on the occasion of the year of Algeria in France, he said "I assumed the direction of this project by launching a call to Algerian designers-visual artists living in Algeria and France: by emphasizing the search for strong ideas: by helping to develop each concept while respecting the personality of each: by finally ensuring to the coherence of the whole by causing redundancies.

Under the title of "Creole Designers", the art critic Gilles de Burne notes about this event: "The analysis then comes back to mind es créateurs algériens d'artistes créoles. parce que, explique-t-il, en Algérie, « la souche de culture première est berbère, royaumes, langue, mémoire orale. Sont venues S'y greffer des souches carthaginoises, latines (Rome restera plus de quarte siècles en Algérie, le latin était langue officielle), et enfin arabes, ottomanes et surtout françaises. Comment s'étonner dés lors que la porosité, ici soit presque établie en système ? En tout cas, qu'elle constitue à la fois une origine, un moteur et peut-être un objectif… Artistes créoles, l'expression est heureusement et étonnamment chargée de sens. Quelles souches sont donc venues se greffer sur ce qui est présenté aujourd'hui ? plusieurs artistes créateurs figuraient dans cet opus initiéur, Selma Aboulola, Chafika Aït-Oudhia, Safir Alleg, Amira Atallaoui, Abdelaziz Bacha, Djinane Benlabed, Amel Cherif, Bilal Cherif, Souad Delmi Bouras, Fatma Zohra Djabella, Abderrahim Dorbani, Abd El Baki Drias , Feriel Gasmi, Mohamed Fayçal Guenni, Youcef Hadbi, Faïza Hafiane, Samir Hamiane, Kabila Kalache, Fatima Krim, Ferial Meguellati, Tania Chebli Messaoudene, Nasereddine Ouahab, Assia Ould Kablia, Imaad Rahmouni, Khaled Sadi, Mohamed Yahi, Mahmoud Zoubir Hellal.