Our history
Colour from the roll
It all began with a seemingly simple but revolutionary idea for the (re)design of surfaces: in 1975, our company founder Gottfried A. F. Militzer developed a self-adhesive foil with a low-reflection embossing and named it milament foil. Until then, it was common practice to lacquer, paint or wallpaper walls at great effort, which led to delays and high costs when fitting out temporary spaces such as in museums, at trade fairs or in other presentation formats. Thanks to our foil, which was available in a good 30 colours right from the start, it was now possible to design wall surfaces individually – easily, cleanly and again and again.
Thanks to the high-quality materials and scratch resistance, the result was also an even and therefore expressive look that can hardly be achieved with painting or lacquering. To ensure flexible use across the board, carrier panels compatible with the trade fair systems on the market were offered alongside the foils; these were later developed further into honeycomb elements.
The idea took off
Just five years later, more than one million square metres of milament foil had been sold worldwide from Sonnenbühl, where MBA had its headquarters until 1988. This international success is not only visible in the company name, MBA Worldwide, but also led to the founding of our American subsidiary in Exton, Pennsylvania, in 1987. To this day, MBA-USA successfully serves a large number of customers in museums as well as in trade fair and exhibition construction in the USA.
Just one year later, the company moved to Reutlingen, where its headquarters are still located today. It was here, in 1991, that the next generation joined the family business: Markus Militzer, son of the company founder, increasingly took over the management and continues to run the company successfully to this day.
From foil to system
After the great success of the foils and the panels and honeycomb elements coated with them, the obvious next step was to develop our own modular wall system that clearly stands out from existing systems: no distracting system technology should be visible from the outside, and it can be assembled and dismantled in the shortest possible time.
In 1990, we developed and patented the Mila-wall 100 series. Not only its functional and structural properties but also the combination of flexibility and aesthetics convinced ART Frankfurt in the same year, and so we were able to celebrate the launch of the series with a first major order for 6,000 wall modules.
To this day, we continue to expand and optimise the modular wall system with its all-round aluminium frame and to extend the accessories – and of course the range of foils, which has now grown to more than 176.
Audible development
The continuous expansion of our product range has earned us many national and international (design) awards in recent years. But that is not all: the further development and exploration of new ideas opens up new applications in temporary spatial design.
In 2014, together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics, we developed Mila-wall Acoustic. Thanks to its micro-fine perforation, it reliably absorbs sound and is therefore perfectly suited not only for acoustic screening in temporary spaces but also for long-term office solutions.
Today and in the future
Today, we are a successful worldwide developer, manufacturer and distributor of sustainable modular wall systems with the aim of creating valuable spaces. For more than 45 years, we have seen ourselves as competent partners whose individual solutions are at home wherever high-quality design meets flexible approaches – in other words, in all areas of spatial staging, from museums to exhibition stand construction and events through to office furnishings.
Our goal remains to design high-quality, emotional spaces that fascinate and inspire people. At the same time, we want to conserve resources for future generations with modern products that can be reused over the long term. True to our philosophy: The Art of Space Design – fascinating and transforming.