Our history
The colour from the roll
It all began with a seemingly simple yet revolutionary idea for (re)designing surfaces: in 1975, our company founder Gottfried A. F. Militzer developed a self-adhesive film with low-reflection embossing and named it milament film. Until then, it had been common practice to paint, varnish or wallpaper walls, which led to delays and high costs when decorating temporary spaces such as museums, trade fairs or other presentation formats. Thanks to our film, which was available in a good 30 colours right from the start, it was now possible to design wall surfaces easily, cleanly and individually, again and again.
Thanks to the high-quality material and scratch resistance, a uniform and expressive look was achieved that would have been difficult to achieve with paint or varnish. In order to ensure flexible application options, carrier plates compatible with the exhibition systems available on the market were offered in parallel with the films and were later developed into honeycomb elements.
The idea was a hit!
Just five years later, over one million square metres of milament films were sold worldwide from Sonnenbühl, where MBA's headquarters were located until 1988. This international success is not only reflected in the company name, MBA Worldwide, but also led to the establishment of our American subsidiary in Exton, Pennsylvania, in 1987. To this day, MBA-USA successfully serves a large number of customers in museums and 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. In 1991, the next generation joined the family business: Markus Militzer, son of the company founder, took over more and more of the business and continues to run it successfully to this day!
From film to system
Following the huge success of the films and the panels and honeycomb elements coated with them, it seemed obvious to develop our own wall system that would stand out clearly from existing systems: no disruptive system technology should be visible from the outside, and it should be possible to assemble and dismantle it in the shortest possible time.
So in 1990, we developed and patented the Mila-wall Series 100. Not only its functional and structural properties, but also its 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 an initial large order for 6,000 wall modules.
To this day, we continue to work on expanding and optimising the modular wall system with surrounding aluminium frames and expanding the range of accessories – including, of course, the range of films, 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's not all: the further development and exploration of new ideas has resulted in new applications for temporary interior design.
In 2014, for example, we developed the Mila-wall Acoustic in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics. Its micro-fine perforation allows it to reliably absorb sound, making it perfect not only for acoustic shielding in temporary spaces, but also for long-term office solutions.
Today and in the future
Today, we are a globally successful 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 a competent partner whose individual solutions are at home wherever high-quality design meets flexible solutions – in other words, in all areas of spatial design, from museums and trade fair construction to events and 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 through modern and long-term reusable products. True to our philosophy: The Art of Space Design – fascinating and transforming.
