Who is Miguel Vila Luna?

Miguel Eduardo “Micky” Vila Luna (July 7, 1943 – April 1, 2005) was an architect and painter from the Dominican Republic. Miguel Vila Luna was born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic upon July 7, 1943. His parents were Ramón Vila Piola (who led a revolt next to dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina to the side of Juan Isidro Jimenes Grullón in 1934) and Ana Gregoria Luna. Vila was an individual related to design, to aspects of decorative comfort, to pictorial work, but from the training of architecture and above all, in cultivated aversion that formed in the roots of his associates life. After his prematurely training in painting in the ventilate of Rafael Arzeno, he took going on an artistic career at an art course at the University of Puerto Rico and graduated as an architect at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. He after that attended the American University and the École Américaine des Beaux-Arts in the Palais de Fontainebleau in France. He died upon April 1, 2005 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Miguel Vila Luna was officially introduced during the so-called “twelve years of Balaguer“, from 1966 to 1978, which mark the Dominican territory an unavoidable stage in the enhancement of national architecture and urbanism. Joaquín Balaguer, former president of the country, was accomplished to pick well, at this stage, his architects. The list of outstanding projects designated for several specific architects is long and plentiful. Miguel Vila led a supplementary style among Dominican professionals, in which he dedicated himself to the discipline of including landscaping in buildings. After Balaguer’s two reelections, his control higher than the architecture was reduced. In addition, the interactional architectural scene changes drastically. A extra generation of postmodernity arises including architects such as Miguel Vila, Plácido Piña, Teófilo Carbonell, Angel Giudicelli, Oscar Imbert, Gustavo Luis “Cuquito” Moré, Tácito Cordero, among others.

In those years, Miguel Vila, with his unequaled leadership among the youngest architects, produced a series of private works that imposed part of the aesthetic guidelines of postmodernism. Vila, whose pretense began in the to come 1970s under the laws of unprejudiced architecture, gradually penetrated the study of regional architecture to his committed attachment of historicist architecture, from where he developed merged proposals that produced a combined environment of innovations in the national scenario. Convinced of the aesthetic strength of architecture as a key element for a better air of life, Miguel Vila developed particular put on an act for tone and formal capacities, which was broadminded for his era. This became references for the architects of the times which reproduced his criteria of integrating architecture similar to the exterior. The sequence, spatial categorization, and wealth of decorative resources were set by Vila as motivators for the coexistence. His treatment of the walls in which he rejected the edges and framed the gaps were ration of his language, which was used for a mass generation. His partners became, later, protagonists of architecture operating to tropical solutions.

Since its inauguration, Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic has undergone significant changes in its indigenous concept of architecture. The designs of Miguel Vila, Roberto Copa, William Cox, Rafael Eduardo Selman, Jose Horacio Marranzini and his son Alejandro have been important in its development.

In 1963, his pictorial works appeared in the XI National Biennial. In 1979, Micky recorded his first exhibition which was held in Paris, in the Ives Brun gallery. He headed a pursuit with the poet Manuel Antonio Rueda González that offered the subsequent to traits: a plurality of readings of the work, active participation in the spectator’s interpretation, inseparability of color and form, integration of universal and local elements, and motivations to the plastic and psycho-philosophies. His artistic motion of futurism was wealthy in followers. His works resemble futurism and are bountiful in brilliant compositions of color and movement.