‘Miguel Milá. (Pre)industrial Designer’

From 19 June to 28 September 2025, visitors to the Disseny Hub Barcelona (DHub) will be able to see Miguel Milá. (Pre)industrial Designer, the largest retrospective to date on this pioneer and harbinger of industrial design in Catalonia and Spain, who won some of the most important national and international design awards thanks to his functional, streamlined, timeless, elegant style. Curated by Gonzalo Milá and Claudia Oliva, the exhibition offers visitors a unique survey of Milá’s career, which links his personal life with his work, both of which were closely connected. The outcome is a humanistic portrait of a man regarded as an icon of Barcelona design.

Miguel Milá. (Pre)industrial Designer, co-organised by DHub, La Fábrica and the Madrid Design Festival, brings together more than 150 pieces, including both recent designs and prototypes. In addition to the objects designed by Milá, this exhibition also adds a plethora of documentation which complements and contextualises the works displayed. More than 270 documents, including blueprints, original drawings and photos, magazines and sale catalogues, text documents and scale models help, to flesh out the portrait of the person and his family and social milieu and the way they are reflected in his work. They also provide information on the objects designed by Milá and their life cycle, not only their creation process but also the way they were manufactured, sold and projected to the public.

The route, which runs through eight rooms, starts with a sketch of Milá’s family milieu, his beginnings as an interior designer and his foray into design, almost unwittingly, in the quest for objects that were lacking during those years of scarcity. This personal profile also helps to capture the inception of the discipline of industrial design, in which Milá played a crucial role. After that, the exhibition explores the Barcelona designer’s principles and hallmarks. To do so, it highlights Milá’s connection with the crafts and his idea of constant evolution, his constant quest for objects’ optimisation, conservation and sustainability. It also highlights Milá's contributions to household design, which was always a constant source of inspiration for the designer, and his interventions in the urban space, where he strove to bring simple, ergonomic and economical solutions.