Living history of Spanish design
About to turn 93 years old, the designer Miguel Mila He remains active, with extraordinary energy and never tires of collecting awards and recognitions wherever they are given, with the humility and generosity of the visionary teacher, who opened frontiers to the then almost non-existent Spanish design. It will be within the framework of Madrid Design Festival, in February 2024, where we can see the retrospective Miguel Dear. (Pre)industrial designer, which will house more than 200 original pieces, plans and drawings, from prototypes to his most recent works.
Miguel Milà has been a very prolific creator, who has developed all types of designs, with a special predilection for furniture and lighting. From this last sector, we want to highlight the Basket lamp, a very pampered creation, with worldwide success, that starts from a very simple and earthly idea: the basket. Santa&Cole is the editor of this cult piece, which she continues to produce in various versions.
Cesta lamp, versatile and functional
Designed in 1962, its curved structure and its handle in cherry wood They function as a basket that houses the opal-shaped screen. The combination of both elements gives rise to an object of great functionality, with a friendly and close aesthetic, which has made it a true classic.
Miguel Milá has defined it on multiple occasions as a "Magic Lantern", thanks to a design that offers great freedom of placement, since it can be placed on a table, a chest of drawers, a bookcase or directly on the floor.
A big family
Over the years, numerous reinterpretations, but the essence of the design remains the same, a timeless classic that has become an object of desire since the 60s, which continues to be reissued with different materials and sizes.
The Cesta family is made up of table lamps Basket, Basket, Metallic Basket and Metallic Basket and the ceiling lamp Balloon Basket and wall Wally, standard bearers of the warmth and well-being typical of the Mediterranean.
Basket Lamp
The younger sister, little basket, is a flirty version of Cesta, which can hold both a opaline globe like another white plastic one. This results in a significantly more accessible price, but maintaining the robust structural simplicity, optimal for children's or nomadic environments.
Basic Basket Lamp
Battery Basket (2017) is another member of the Cesta family: a portable and wireless version. With this new version, the characteristics of the lamp are improved with the help of technology. Maintaining the warm spirit of the family, it presents a opal glass shade supported by a beautiful cherry wood structure.
It is manufactured manually by European artisans, using traditional techniques of steam bending for wood, and techniques of glass blowing for your opal lampshade. Battery Basket is a lantern that creates a beautiful atmosphere anywhere; representing Chinese shadows in the garden, or emanating light from any corner.
Alubat basket, in aluminum
Alubat basket (2020) is the latest addition to the Cesta family. Robust but lightweight, this version is ready for action in Interior and exterior. Su aluminum structure, with closed plastic balloon for better sealing and rechargeable battery, It is distinguished by its sobriety in black and white. The three light intensities (full, standard or low), make this lamp an excellent companion for both adventures and moments of tranquility.
Metal Basket
The lamp Metal Basket It is the updated edition, in metal, of the Basket, which has its own attributes. Presents itself with or without leather handle, whose softness contrasts with the severity of the plates that gently hold an opal globe that has no upper opening.
The handleless version of the Metal Basket is intended to stay in place, but, like its older sister, the Basket can be placed in any corner or shelf, improving everything that illuminates.
Globo Cesta and Globo Cestita ceiling lamps
La basket family It has been extended and incorporated other lighting positions and functions. This is where suspension lamps come from. Basket Balloon and Basket Balloon, representatives of Mediterranean warmth and well-being.
Wally wall light
And finally, we present Wally, conceived in 1962, the same year as the Cesta family lamps. This iconic apply It shares with them the shape of the opal globe and its formal elegance. The structure that fixes the element to the wall, available in matte white or dark bronze, It is made up of a metal arm and ring that support and embrace the glass screen. With a recognizable touch of distinction, the wally wall light It balances in its environment and offers delicate and non-prominent lighting indoors and outdoors.
The Master Craftsman
Born in Barcelona in 1931, Miguel Milá He belongs to the generation of designers who made their way in post-war Spain, difficult times for a society focused on solving its basic concerns such as food, work and housing. A society disinterested and poorly trained in aesthetic and avant-garde topics, which they considered trivialities and matters foreign to their daily reality.
Precisely Milá's great contribution was to create everyday objects of great beauty and functionality, pieces of timeless modernity, which were subtly introduced into the lives of all Spaniards.
At the head of Catalan “design”
In the mid-50s, Miguel Milá abandoned his architecture career to start working in his brother's architecture studio. Alfonso Milà and Federico Correa. His aesthetic sensitivity and his taste for impeccably crafted objects came from his family. In fact, his first job as an interior designer was the decoration of his aunt Nuria's office, which he carried out with a minimalist and elegant sense, in which he used little furniture, but in which he gave great prominence to The lamps, for which he had great ability and vocation, as he later demonstrated.
Shortly after, he set up his own company, SECTION (annoying jobs) or “everything a little brother has to do”, in response to the lack of objects that meet a minimum aesthetic and functional standard. From here his career was a climb towards the highest level of Spanish design, with great international impact.
The starting signal was probably given by his TMC lamp (from 1958 and published for the first time in 1960), which would be succeeded by TMM (1961) and a series of versions around the same idea, which have become icons of contemporary design, like the Cesta lamp (1962), the magnificent chimney A 14 (1977) and the metal spiral staircase (1975)
urban designs
During the postmodernism, which flooded the showcases and exhibitions in the eighties and nineties, with objects created for pure entertainment, Miguel Milá, little friend of fashions "just because" and not very in agreement with the excess and vitriolism of the design of the time, focused in it interior, in the realization of exhibitions and in the design of urban furniture. Its famous bank dates back to this time. NeoRomantic (1995) and the bank Tram, for the '92 Olympics. Also in those years he undertook the design of the interior of the train carriages. Barcelona Metro, work that lasted until the early nineties
The pre-industrial designer
In the face of superficiality, the abuse of forms and the meaninglessness of what is artificial, Miguel Milá has always put consistency of your work, to which he has dedicated himself with the devotion of a craftsman who likes noble raw materialss and the earth, like leather and wood. Dedicated to creating “objects with little design”, has always opted for subtle and non-invasive aesthetics, and of course, that does not disturb its usefulness. A rationalism free of rigidity and very Mediterranean and friendly.
“I'm actually a designer. preindustrial. I feel most 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.”
Thanks, teacher!
