Artists
Lilly Reich
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German designer and architect. She joined the Deutscher Werkbund in 1912 and on 25 October 1920 became the first woman on its governing board, organising exhibitions that carried German design abroad. From 1925 until Mies van der Rohe's emigration in 1937 she was his closest professional partner, credited with shaping the interiors and furniture of the Barcelona Pavilion (1929) and Villa Tugendhat (1930) alongside him. In 1932 she took over the Bauhaus fitting-out workshop as its second female Master, teaching interior and furniture design until the school's 1933 closure. Her Berlin studio was bombed in 1943 and she was conscripted into forced labour until 1945; she taught again after the war and ran her own Berlin studio until her death in 1947. Her authorship went largely uncredited in her lifetime and for decades after; MoMA's 1996 exhibition Lilly Reich: Designer and Architect, and research since, has restored her name to work long attributed to Mies alone.
Facts
TrainingTrained as an industrial embroiderer; worked at the Wiener Werkstatte in Vienna from 1908 before returning to Berlin in 1911. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Closest professional partnership, 1925 to his 1937 emigration; co-credited today on the Barcelona Pavilion, its furniture, and Villa Tugendhat's interiors.
Practices
Works Created
Reich co-designed the interior fittings and, with Mies, the Barcelona chair; her credit was omitted from most twentieth-century accounts and restored by later scholarship (MoMA's 1996 Reich exhibition; Fundacio Mies van der Rohe research since).
Reich co-designed the interior fittings and furniture with Mies, 1928 to 1930.
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationLilly Reich article, lead sectionQuote, Lilly Reich article, lead section
Lilly Reich was a German designer specializing in textiles, furniture, interiors, and exhibition spaces.
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationWorks Created: Villa Tugendhat, Lilly Reich articleView the Source Fundacio Mies van der Rohe
Fundacio Mies van der Rohe, BarcelonaAssociated With: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Lilly Reich in Barcelona: The Materialization of a Neglected Authorship, by Laura Martinez de GuerenuView the Source Fundacio Mies van der Rohe
Fundacio Mies van der Rohe, BarcelonaWorks Created: Barcelona Pavilion, Lilly Reich in Barcelona: The Materialization of a Neglected Authorship, by Laura Martinez de GuerenuView the Source Gardner's Art Through the Ages
Fred S. Kleiner (after Helen Gardner), Cengage LearningPractices: Architecture, chapters on architectural history across periods
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Works Created: Barcelona Pavilion
For most of the twentieth century, the Barcelona Pavilion and the chair made for it were credited to Mies van der Rohe alone. The chair was not even given the name Barcelona chair until Knoll assigned it in 1987. Lilly Reich, Mies's partner on the project and, by later research, co-designer of its furniture and interior fittings, went unnamed in most accounts until historians, notably following MoMA's 1996 exhibition on her work, restored her credit.
A dissenting reading, from Twentieth-century design credit convention (museum and manufacturer catalog lines through the 20th century)Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
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