Milo Baughman Biography

Milo Baughman (1923-2003) was born in Kansas and raised in Long Beach, California. At the age of 13 he was enlisted by his parents to contribute to the design of the family home setting the path for a career that would span 6 decades.

Hopes of becoming an architect were interrupted by World War II during when Baughman served four years in the Army Air Forces. Even during this time he was active in designing officer’s clubs.

After the war, he returned to Southern California to study product & architectural design at the Art Center School of Los Angeles and the California Institute of the Arts. After this he created window displays for Frank Brothers, the West Coast`s first all-modern store. In no time he was customising his own furniture and licensing his designs for the booming postwar market.

In 1947, at only 24, he formed Milo Baughman Design and quickly became a significant designer in the burgeoning West Coast furniture industry. In the early 1950’s Baughman ran a husband-wife partnership with his first wife Olga Lee in Los Angeles; Lee contributed hand-printed fabrics, wallpaper, lamps and accessories to accompany Baughman’s furniture designs.

Over his prolific career Baughman collaborated with more than a dozen major manufacturing partners and lecturered at numerous institutions. The most notable partnership was with Thayer Coggin, for whom Baughman designed for 50 years. The two men began their partnership in 1953, when Coggin and Baughman were both 29 years old.

Baughman`s metal dining tables appeared in a model house built for a 1950 exhibition at New York`s Museum of Modern Art and his pieces are icons of the period in museumn such as Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 1987 he was inducted into the Furniture Designer`s Hall of Fame.

Baughman maintained his design studio right up until his death at the age 80 in July 2003. Together in business together in death, Thayer Coggin died weeks before Baughman.

Baughman’s designs took cues from the engineering & functionality of Bauhaus and the Mid Century-Modern exploration of materials. He is known to have said "Within the total meaning of function, is included the purpose to please." He promoted the social benefits of good design. In a 1971 lecture at Oregon State University, Baughman asserted, “The structured environment must offer significant social and emotional benefits; it cannot simply look good. In discussing the importance of environment, we are discussing primarily the quality and importance of human life.”

A recent article `Milo Baughman: Modern Legend - Avant-Garde Concepts Become Classics in the Hands of this Renowned Furniture Designer` appeared in Florida Design Magazine, Volume 13, Number 1 by Heather L. Schreckengast.