Lo esencial. El diseño y otras cosas de la vida

His lamps, his cane chairs and his iconic Barcelona benches are already part of our collective imagination, but his work is much broader, always attentive to human needs and with a deep sense of functionality and aesthetics. Miguel Milá has also been an ecologist avant la lettre and a defender of “the essential” and “emotion” as decisive elements in design.

There have been books analyzing his work, and an important documentary, but never before a “Milá by Milá”. In The Essential Milá talks about himself, his work, his principles, and his ideas, but also about his family (so closely linked to the history of Barcelona), his own life and the education of his children.

This is not a book for designers or only for designers. The practical advice of this award-winning artist who defines himself as “inventor and bricoleur” helps us to represent our personal world, to surround ourselves with beautiful and useful objects (“a lamp spends much more time off than on,” Milá reminds us), to distinguish design aberrations (such as square sinks or dishes), to recognize what is truly important (“what is simple is difficult to achieve”), to know how to live in harmony with the elements and nature, but also with others, starting with our own family (“be useful and they will use you”).

The essential is the theoretical and vital legacy of one of our best designers, whose work confirms the definition of “classic”: that which cannot be done better.