Miguel Milá: A Life in Design traces the full arc of a foundational Spanish designer's practice — from hand-crafted prototypes born of necessity to the iconic lighting and furniture that defined a generation of modernist making.
About This Book
Miguel Milá occupies a singular position in the history of Spanish industrial design: he began not as a manufacturer but as an interior designer who, finding the objects he needed simply didn't exist, made them himself. Working with raw and renewable materials, he built prototypes by hand and refined them over decades. This monograph surveys his most emblematic works from 1956 to 2021, situating them within the country's early modernist movement while grounding them in Milá's particular material intelligence. With archival photographs and drawings alongside original photography shot at his Barcelona home, it is essential reading for anyone serious about the relationship between craft process and industrial design.
Key Features
- 160 pages of archival photographs, technical drawings, and original photography of Milá's Barcelona home by Nacho Alegre
- Introduction by designer Jasper Morrison; product catalogue and biographical text by design academic Francisco Gaspar Quevedo
- Works surveyed span 1956 to 2021, encompassing Milá's full creative output
- Published by Apartamento, 2021
What You'll Discover
- How Milá's practice emerged from material scarcity — making objects the Spanish market had not yet produced — and why that origin shaped his entire design philosophy
- The evolution of his most iconic lighting and furniture pieces, traced through archival drawings and prototype photography
- The principles underpinning his use of raw and renewable materials, as analysed by Francisco Gaspar Quevedo's biographical and critical text
- Jasper Morrison's framing of Milá's significance within a broader international modernist lineage
About the Author
[Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 160
- Dimensions: 295 x 240 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9788409413393
- Publisher: Apartamento
- Publication Date: 2021
Perfect For: Industrial designers, design historians, and collectors with a focused interest in Spanish modernism, craft-led practice, and the intersection of furniture and lighting design.