A Design Classic #Miguel Milá

Miguel Milá is part of the generation that introduced in Spain the idea of Industrial Design, as he took part among other currently considered “design classics” such as André Ricard, Antoni de Moragas or Rafael Marquina in the creation of the design association ADI-FAD. Although he followed his elder brother Alfonso’s advice and took on Architecture studies, he quit and joined the studio that Alfonso shared with Federico Correa as an interior designer. There, they were directly influenced by José Antonio Coderch, thus acquiring a taste for sober elegance and craftsmanship that one can notice in their steel sheet hearths.

There he started designing objects due to a lack of suitable products for their projects in the contemporary industry. In fact, because of the conditions presented at that time by the industry, many of his products, as the rattan chairs, were crafted, which made him define himself as a pre-industrial designer.

A lamp is an element whose form should be thoroughly studied in such a way that it contributes to the creation of a space in the most moving manner. Miguel Milá: Industrial and interior designer, inventor and bricoleur, 2017

His lamps might be the better known part of his work. Many of them are a clearly visible part in Correa & Milá’s interiors and, sometimes, were specifically designed for those projects. The Cesta lamp, contemporary but vernacular, is an essential element in the weekend houses that Correa and Milá built on the Costa Brava during the sixties, while the lamps M68 provided the black-and-white furniture and decoration of the Flash Flash restaurant with a touch of colour.