Designing is seeing life through a magnifying glass. Goodbye to Miguel Milá

Miquel Milá. (Barcelona, February 7th 1931 - Bilbao, 12 de agosto de 2024) Born into a Barcelona bourgeois family connected to artistic circles (his uncle Pedro Milá Camps commissioned Gaudí to design the famous Casa Milá, known as La Pedrera), Miguel Milá began working as an interior designer in the family studio that his brother Alfonso Milá shared with Federico Correa. These were the 1950s, a time of self-sufficiency and constant crisis when little was known about industrial design.

He began studying architecture, which he abandoned in 1955, although his world was always linked to architect friends. He began his career as an interior designer in the studio that his brother Alfonso had founded with Federico Correa. Two years later he founded his studio, Trabajos Molestos or TRAMO, together with his two architect friends, Francisco Ribas Barangé and Eduardo Pérez Ulibarri, a company focused on the design and production of interior furniture. The first versions of the TMC lamp (1958) and the TMM lamp (1961) were created there, two timeless classics that continue to influence generations of the present. At the beginning of the 21st century, Milá founded his interior design studio, taking great care of his processes and perfecting his technique: “I am actually a pre-industrial designer. I feel more comfortable with those technical procedures that allow me to correct errors, experiment during the process and control it as much as possible. Hence my preference for noble materials, which know how to age.”

Outside the studio, Miguel Milá participated in meetings with architects and designers where he discussed the aesthetics and architectural modernity of the city of Barcelona. The first industrial design association in Spain, ADI-FAD, was born as a result of these conversations and was founded together with André Ricard, Antonio de Moragas, Oriol Bohigas and Rafael Marquina, among others. Since its creation, the group has been dedicated to spreading Spanish design abroad and Miguel Milá became president between 1974 and 1984.

Miguel Milá defines his creative style as a craft process, based on "having an idea and removing what is superfluous." This was the case with the Cesta lamp (1964) and its subsequent family made up of several table lamps, such as Cestita or Alubat and several pendant lamps such as Globo Cesta. "A lamp is off more than it is on, so you have to take great care of its shape so that it contributes to the space in the most exciting way possible" stated Milá. The Barcelona native was also a teacher for 14 years, teaching at the renowned design schools in Barcelona, ​​ELISAVA and EINA.

His career has been associated since the 1980s with the firm Santa & Cole, which still stocks his lamps.

He was awarded the first edition of the National Design Award, ex aequo with André Ricard, National Design Award (1987), Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (2016), or Compasso d´Oro Internazionale in 2008 from the Italian ADI in recognition of his professional career and his contribution to the dissemination of Spanish design abroad.