On the occasion of the recent City of Barcelona award, Miguel Milá gives us an interview in which we remember his career and his way of understanding the profession.
Miguel Milá assures us that he did not know he was an industrial designer until one day a friend told him so. It was in this organic and unpretentious way that his love for what was to become his life’s profession – design – was born. He tells us that at that time he was studying architecture and started working as an interior designer in the office of his brother and his partner. There he began to design pieces of furniture that would inhabit the studio.
A few years later he founded Trabajos Modernos with two architect friends: Francisco Ribas Barangé and Eduardo Pérez Ulibarri. It was a company focused on the design and production of interior furniture. Many years have passed between then and now and there have been several awards. The most recent, the one he has just won: the Gold Medal of the City of Barcelona in recognition of a professional career that has contributed to the international projection of the city and the country. The award ceremony will take place on 2 September. We talked with him about how he understands his profession, beauty and also life.
Shop window of Miguel Milá’s studio. Editorial credit: Miguel Milá.
You have just won the Gold Medal of the City of Barcelona. With a career like yours, are you still excited about something like this?
I am very excited to receive this award in the square where I was born. It’s a great honour.
Did you always know you wanted to be an industrial designer?
I was studying architecture and I started working as an interior designer in the office of my brother and his partner. As there was no furniture that wasn’t old and alien, I started to design pieces that could populate those interiors. I didn’t know I was an industrial designer until one day a friend told me.
In your book The Essential. Design and other things in life, you reflect on design, but also your way of understanding life. What drives you to create?
The family experience shaped my understanding of life and was the platform from which I learned to be useful. Usefulness was the vehicle for wanting to do things that served others.
When you were young you had the same?
I was observant and cared about how things were done, how the environment worked. I learned to draw, to do repairs for my brothers. In post-war Spain, ingenuity was a value that brought you closer to others.
Miguel Milá in his studio. Editorial credit: Poldo Pomés.
How did you experience those years of gauche divine?
I was not very ‘divine’ but I really enjoyed the opening up of the country to the world. We had many friends: painters, sculptors, architects, writers. My youth was a time of exploration and I had the desire to discover. We used to travel around Europe with our friends in vans, driven by art, by culture, by learning how others lived and worked. We experienced a very magical time in this sense.
The family experience shaped my understanding of life and was the platform from which I learned to be useful. Usefulness was the vehicle for wanting to do things that served others.
How do you understand beauty in life? Do you conceive it in the same way in design?
Aesthetic emotion is that which is indescribable but at the same time inalienable. It creates an emotional bond with things. That makes us feel good and be happier.
Although we all need beauty in one way or another, in your case, do you feel that you have always sought it?
More than a search, it is a result. When everything is where it should be, because it has been thought out, ordered, intentional.
Still life of designs by Miguel Milá. Editorial credit: Poldo Pomés and Clara Quintana.
On several occasions you have said that ‘simple is difficult to achieve’. How have you managed to create designs based on simplicity?
Debugging is an obsession. An idea that takes over the thinking; a kind of puzzle to be solved. When you feel that nothing is missing and that a piece responds to what is asked of it.
My youth was a time of exploration and desire to discover. We used to travel around Europe with our friends in vans, driven by art, by culture…
You took part in the creation of ADI-FAD. Was positioning Barcelona as the cradle of design always one of your aims?
More than a purpose, it was an organic process of collective interest. We talked to each other, we shared ideas, we were interested in what others were doing in other places. It was a moment of effervescence where everything was to be done – to build a world that responded to the generation we were.
Aesthetic emotion is that which is indescribable but at the same time inalienable. It creates an emotional bond with things. That makes us feel good and be happier.
On the left, model TMM; on the right, model FAD; in the centre, lamp M68 and Espantamosques. Editorial credit: Fernando Gómez / Madrid Design Festival.
It seems that now the cycle closes with the city presenting this award. How do you see Barcelona today?
I am very grateful to receive a tribute in my city. I hope that it is not a closure. I’m still very interested in what has been my profession, my life.
Do you have any dreams left to fulfill?
I fulfill dreams every day when I wake up.
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The more personal side…
What style of design do you like the most?
Style is not a word I understand. For me, fashion is what goes out of fashion and doesn’t interest me.
A specific artist
Art impresses me. It allows me to simply enjoy it.
Do you collect anything?
Anything that I think might be useful to me at some point.
A country you would go back to 100 times
I’m more interested in discovering than repeating.
A pending trip
Many more.
A daily habit
Singing.
A hobby
Riding horses for many years.
A colour
Green.
The documentary ‘Miguel Milá: Diseñador industrial e interiorista, inventor y bricoleur’, filmed by Polmo Pomés Leiz, is a vivid portrait of Milá and his way of understanding the world.
