Alongside Lilly Reich, there are pioneer female architects and designers of that time within the Modern Architecture Movement: Ireland's Eileen Gray; Truus Schröder, co-author, with Gerrit Rietveld, of the famous Schröeder house; Margarete Schüte-Lihotzky with her extensive work in social housing and her obsession with facilitating women's work at home so that they could have more free time; the Finnish Elissa Mäkiniemi; the Danish Ragna Grubb, interested in social housing; Charlotte Perriand in France; or the Chinese-American Anne Tyng, co-author together with Louis Khan of the most significant buildings of the Khan office in the 1950s in the USA, who was also the architect of the first building of the Khan office in the USA, among others.
Lilly Reich
Berlín 16-06-1885 ‖ Berlín 14-12-1947
Període d'activitat: Des de 1908 fins 1947
Classificació geogràfica: Europa > Alemanya
Moviments socio-culturals
Edat contemporània > Moviments artístics des de finals del s. XIX > Art del primer terç del s. XX
Edat contemporània > Moviments artístics des de finals del s. XIX > Art de postguerra
Edat contemporània > Moviments artístics des de finals del s. XIX > Racionalisme arquitectònic / Moviment modern > Bauhaus
Edat contemporània > Moviments artístics des de finals del s. XIX > Racionalisme arquitectònic / Moviment modern
Fites històriques > Primera Guerra Mundial
Fites històriques > Entreguerres
Fites històriques > Segona Guerra Mundial
Grups per àmbit de dedicació
Tecnòlogues > Arquitectes
Tecnòlogues > Enginyeres
Tecnòlogues > Dissenyadores d'objectes
Educadores > Professores
Artistes plàstiques, visuals i escèniques > Artistes gràfiques
Artistes plàstiques, visuals i escèniques > Artistes tèxtils
Artistes plàstiques, visuals i escèniques > Decoradores
Artistes plàstiques, visuals i escèniques > Modistes / Dissenyadores de moda
Professionals / Altres grups > Mestres de taller
Context de creació femenina
Ressenya
Lilly Reich began her career as fashion designer, where she learned to appreciate materials, textures, and colours. Afterwards, this was useful for her, being devoted to furniture design, interior design and architecture.
She was the first director of Deutscher Werkbund, the important organisation devoted to design promotion and German high standard industrial production. It was a key post for showing and spreading new ideas and German products of that time around the world.
The most extreme and influential proposals in the history of modern architecture were carried out in the context of temporary exhibitions where Lilly Reich participated, organised and designed in most of them, alongside Mies van der Rohe. However, Mies' fame hides her significant contribution to the development of modern movement.
Justificacions
Biografia
Lilly Reich was born on the 16th of June 1885 in a well-off family in Berlin. Perhaps she received non-conventional education before World War I, although it is unclear. Little is known about her professional training between her graduation when she was 18 or 19 years old and her first project, documented in 1911, when she was 26. It could be said that she was self-taught.
In 1908, Lilly Reich was settled in Vienna, after having studied textile design and fashion and having attended classes from architects such as Hermann Muthesius and Peter Behrens. In this city she started to work in the studio/workshop of secessionist architect Josef Hoffmann, where she designed several chairs, such as the Kubus, the Cabinet, the Koller and the Broncia.
In Hoffman's studio she came into contact with the Wiener Werkstätte, a group contextualised in the Sezessionsstil movement, which was the Austrian variant of Art Nouveau, which defended the integration of all arts.
Her most important teacher was Else Oppler-Legband. She was a student of Henry van de Velde, who was the artist and founder of the German Werkbund. He had wide experience in fashion, sewing, shop windows, scenographies, and interior designs. He gave Reich access to a professional career as designer and in the design world and the German industry.
Lilly Reich defined fashion as a discipline and stated its undeniable relation with industry in her essay Questions of fashion. She considered clothes as usage objects and not works of art. According to her. they represent the spirit and the soul of the person who wears them.
She returned to Berlin in 1911, where she received her first documented commission: the interior design and furniture design for 32 apartments in the Youth Centre in Charlottenburg. In addition, she did an installation of clothes in the Wertheim Department Store the same year.
In 1912, she joined the Deutscher Werkbund, an organisation devoted to promote design and industrial production.
In 1913, she designed the shop window of the Elefanten-Apotheke pharmacy, in which recipients for medicines and utensils for practising medicine are shown. It was a highly original idea for presenting the elements of production as an advertising claim.
In 1914, she collaborated in the interior design of Haus der Frau (Women's House) in the exhibition Deutscher Werkbund devoted to modern housing that took place in Cologne.
She directed a studio of interior design, decorative art and fashion in Berlin between 1914 and 1924.
In 1920, she was the first woman who directed the governing body of the Deutscher Werkbund. Her responsibilities were planning and the curational tasks of the design exhibitions of the Werkbund. It was a very significant post and highly influential for German industry and design.
In 1924, she travelled to England and the Netherlands with Ferdinand Kramer to know proposals of new policies of social housing.
From 1924 to 1926, she worked in the Commercial Office for fairs in Frankfurt.
Mies van der Rohe met Lilly Reich in 1926 (he was 40 and she 41) and they fell in love (Mies separated from his wife, Ada, with whom he had three daughters). In 1927, Reich moved her house and her own studio to Berlin, where they started working together and had a professional and sentimental relationship for several years. Lilly was in charge of furniture, and she was crucial in projects such as the Barcelona Pavilion or the Tugendhat House.
Lilly Reich started working with Mies in designing several exhibitions. Among them, there is the design of the exhibition of the "Weissenhof Estate" in Stuttgart in 1928.
Another exhibition in which Mies and Reich worked was the "Glass Room" in Stuttgart in 1927 in the exhibition "Die Wohnung" (“housing”), in which a series of rooms (studio, dining room, and living room) were made. They included furniture designed by themselves that let them differentiate the usage of each space, helped by colour, textures of glasses and linoleum of the floor.
Another interesting third exhibition is "Velvet Silk Café" in the "Women's Fashion Exhibition" in Berlin in 1927.
Mid 1928, Mies van der Rohe and Reich were appointed artistic directors of the German section of the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona.
By the end of 1928, Mies van der Rohe started to work in the design of Tugendhat House in Brno (Czech Republic) which was finished in 1930.
The Barcelona Pavilion is the masterpiece in which Mies van der Rohe and Reich staged her revolutionary ideas in 1929 and changed the history of architecture forever. This building was built only for 8 months, but, paradoxically, its image remains in the minds of generations of architects around the world. In fact, it became one of the most influential works of architecture, together with the Tugendhat House that they built too. Mies van der Rohe never recognised Lilly Reich’s participation.
Among other proposals made by Reich, the block with minimalist flats with a linear, open-plan structure created for the German architectural exhibition in Berlin in 1931 must be mentioned. Her proposal of minimalist spaces with no conventionalism is a unique divided environment with furniture allowing to do all the activities of the house as well as being used as workspace. In this case, the kitchen is the piece of furniture that fulfils minimum requirements in the space of a wardrobe, which is closed with sliding shutters and is hidden from the view of the living room work the workspace. All their work responds to the search for maximum simplicity, efficiency and minimum daily care, contributions that derive from their knowledge of domestic work and their desire to free themselves from the time they consume.
While she was associated with Mies van der Rohe, Lilly made hugely important furniture designs, such as the two most famous worldwide chairs: that of the German Pavilion of Barcelona, and that of the Tugendhat House.
In January 1932, Mies van der Rohe, who was the third director of the Bauhaus school at that time, appointed Lilly Reich as director of the building/finish department and the sewing workshop. She continued in that charge when she was in Berlin, in the new Bauhaus head office, until it was closed by Nazis in 1933.
From 1934 to 1938, Lilly Reich and Mies van der Rohe continued receiving commissions to design exhibitions related with housing and textile industry in Berlin.
In 1938, Mies migrated alone to the USA. Lilly stayed in Germany and was in charge of going to the abandoned studio of Miles to the drawings and documents, and to classify and order them meticulously. She took care of Mies' legacy and struggled to defend it while he was in the USA. Lilly Reich helped economically Mies' wife, who stayed in Berlin with their two daughters.
Lilly Reich spent the war working as she could. Nazis were interested in prefabrication and standardisation, and she could work anonymously and precariously by doing routine works of metric modulation. She also spent three years in a forced labour camp.
During the last years of war, she worked for Ernst Neufert, to whom Alber Speer ordered developing new housing standards.
After the war (1945/46), she taught interior design and theory of construction at the Berlin University of the Arts and opened her studio of architecture, design and fashion again, where she designed neon lamps for Siemens in 1946, the furniture for Edith Greenough and the refurbishing of several apartments in the Dahlem and Charlottenburg districts. Her studio was open until she died.
Shortly after the war, with a destroyed Berlin and having sagging morale, she died from cancer in 1947.
3,000 drawings made by Mies, that Lilly Reich saved from being bombed during World War II, were given to a friend who preserved also 900 of Reich's designs, almost all of her work. Fortunately, they show their huge contribution to German architecture and design at the beginning of 20th century and they are currently part of the MOMA archives. The Mies archive exists today thanks to her.
Obres
Angles
Espanyol
- Café terciopelo y seda
- Cocina empotrada, “Kitchenette” en la Exposición Alemana de la Construcción: La Vivienda de nuestro tiempo en Berlín.
- Sala de Vidrio en la exposición Die Wohnung, Stuttgart.
- Sillón Barcelona para el pabellón alemán en la Exposición Internacional en Barcelona.
Shop window for the Wertheim Department Store, Berlin, Germany (1911).
Interior design and furniture for 32 apartments in the Youth Centre, Goetestrasse, Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany (1911).
Two commercial premises and an apartment for the employees of the exhibition Die Frau in Hause und Beruf (Women at home and at work), in the Berlin Zoo, Germany (1912).
Shop window for the Elefanten-Apotheke pharmacy, Berlin, Germany (1913).
Member of the organising committee and shop window design (stands 14 and 15) and living room (stand 11) in the exhibition Deutscher Werkbund in Cologne, Germany (1914).
Art direction (together with Lucius Bernhart) of the Werkbund exhibition for fashion industry in Preussische Abgeordnetenhaus, Berlin, Germany.
1916-1917: Selection of women's works for the exhibition of the Switzerland Werkbund (1915).
Art direction, embroideries and clothes design Kunsthandwerk in der Mode (Craftmanship in fashion) exhibition for the Association of German Fashion in Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlín, Germany (1920).
Dresses for Grassi Museum in the Spring Fair, Leipzig, Germany (1920).
Design of the exhibitor number 3630 in the Werkbund House in the International Fair of Frankfurt, Germany (1923).
Design of the exhibition Atelier für Ausstellungsgestaltung und Mode (Exhibition Workshop of Fashion and Design) for the German Werkbund in the International Fair of Frankfurt, Germany. (Two fairs every year). (1923 – 1926).
Assembling for the travelling exhibition Die Form (together with Ferdinand Kramer and Robert Schmidt) in Kunstgewerbemuseum, Frankfurt, Germany (1924).
Design and organisation of the exhibition Von der Faser zum Gewebe (From fibre to textile), in the International Fair of Frankfurt, Germany (1926).
She designed and organised the pavilions of the exhibition (in collaboration with Mies van der Rohe) and the interior design of modern housing for the exhibition Die Wohnung (Housing) of the German Werkbund in the Weissenhof Estate, Germany (1927).
Design of the Café Samt und Seide (Velvet Silk Café), in collaboration with Mies van der Rohe, for the exhibition Die Mode der Dame (Ladies Fashion) in the German Fashion Industry Fair at the Berlin Trade Fair Centre, Germany (1927).
Design of clothing and table linens for the exhibition Handwerkskunst im Zeitalter der Maschine (Craftmachine in the Machine Age), Manheim, Germany (1927).
Art direction of 25 exhibitors for the German representation and design of the German Pavilion (in collaboration with Mies van der Rohe) in the International Exposition in Barcelona (1929).
Interior design for the Ruthenberg apartment in collaboration with Mies van der Rohe, Berlin, Germany (1930).
Refurbishing of Modlinger House, Wannsee, Berlin, Germany (1930-1931).
Interior design and furniture of the Tungendhat House designed by Mies van der Rohe, Brno, Czechoslovakia (1930).
Design of a house, interior design of apartments for couples and single people in a guest house, furniture showroom for flats and furniture design in the exhibition Die Wohnung unserer Zeit (Dwelling in Our Time) at the German Building Exhibition, Berlin, Germany (1931).
Interior design of the Wertheim apartment, Berlin, Germany (1931).
Interior design for the sales office of Artificial Silk, Eric Raemisch's company, Berlin, Germany (1931).
Design of the following furniture: LR120 (chair), LR 520 (table), LR 530 (little table), LR 500 (garden table), LR 510 (table), LR 600, 610 y 620 (beds) (1931).
Furniture design for the Martha and Karl Lemke House designed by Mies van der Rohe, Berlin, Germany (1931).
Design of the exhibition Deutsches Volk-deutsche Arbeit (German People - German Work), whose co-author was Mies van der Rohe, Berlin, Germany (1934).
Design of the following furniture: LR 701 (double bed), LR 706, 707 y 708 (standing mirrors). LR 702 (umbrella stand), LR 704 (metallic table), LR 705 (little table), LR 703 (circular display cabinet) (1934).
Furniture for the Erich Wolf house designed by Mies van der rohe, Guben, Germany (1934-1935).
Interior design and furniture for the Facius apartment, Berlin, Germany (1936).
Design of chairs and armchairs with tubular steely structure LR 36-101, LR 36-102, LR 36-103B, LR 36-104A, LR 36-105A (1936).
Armchair 36-106 (1937).
Design of halls 4-8 for the Imperial Exposition of the German Textile and Garment Industry (Mies van der Rohe was its co-author) Berlin Trade Fair Centre. The commission was cancelled few weeks before its opening (1937).
Display cabinet of the German textile industry for the International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life, Paris, France (1937)
Design of LR 30-130A armchair with steely tubes and upholstery. Design of furniture for the company Telefunken (1937-1939).
Refurbishing of the residential building H. Fischer, Magdeburg, Germany (1938).
Refurbishing of the G.Büren apartment, Wannsee, Berlin, Germany (1938-40).
Furniture for the Schaeppi apartment. Berlin, Germany (1939).
Design of accessories for electricity for the company Siemens (1946).
Refurbishing of apartments in Dahlem and Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany (1947).
Bibliografia
Barba, Juan and Redondo, María. “Lili Reich, diseñadora de la modernidad Bauhaus”, in Metalocus, retrieved on 20/08/2021, <https://www.metalocus.es/es/noticias/lilly-reich-disenadora-de-la-modernidad-bauhaus>
McQuaid, Matilda. “Lilly Reich: designer and architect”, in MoMA, retrieved on 20/08/2021 <https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_278_300199443.pdf?_ga=2.824625.1252472600.1629730554-1000937341.1626168909>
circARQ, retrieved on 22/08/2021, <https://circarq.wordpress.com/2019/11/17/lilly-reich-1885-1947/>
Colomina, Beatriz. “La casa de Mies: exhibicionismo y coleccionismo”, retrieved on 20/08/2021, in Universidad Autónoma de Mexico, <http://www.revistas.unam.mx/index.php/bitacora/article/view/56065/49748>
Narro, Itziar. “Lilly Reich, la arquitecta de la Bauhaus que trabajó con Mies van der Rohe”, retrieved on 20/08/2021, in AD (online, <https://www.revistaad.es/diseno/iconos/articulos/lilly-reich-arquitecta-bauhaus-trabajo-mies-van-der-rohe/26310>)
“Master, 1932-1933 Lilly Reich”, retrieved on 20/08/2021, in 100 years of Bauhaus
Hernandez Yborra, Sandra. “La sala de vidrio en la exposición Die Wohnung”, retrieved on 20/08/2021, in Urbipedia (online, <https://www.urbipedia.org/hoja/Sala_de_vidrio_en_la_exposici%C3%B3n_Die_Wohnung>)
Espegel, Carmen. “Pioneras de la Arquitectura. Lilly Reich: el espíritu del material” in Fundación Juan March, retrieved on 18/08/2021, (online, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0krzOCXlxQ8 >)
Fundación Mies van der Rohe, retrieved on 20/08/2021, <https://miesbcn.com/es/el-pabellon/>
Enfocament Didàctic
This sheet for author can be studied in the following fields and subjects: visual and plastic arts, design, architecture, and art.