Lilly Reich, designer of Bauhaus modernity

She began her career studying fashion in Vienna, receiving classes from architects such as Hermann Muthesius or Peter Behrens, although she finally devoted herself to furniture design. Despite not having studied architecture, she made works of other artistic disciplines strictly linked to it. Her first orders are part of the movement of the Deutscher Werkbund in 1912, such as the exhibition in a shop window of a pharmacy in Elefanten-Aotheke, in Berlin.

Between 1914 and 1924 she had her own studio in which she carried out interior design, decorative arts and fashion. The recognition obtained by work led her to be the first woman elected as a member of the Board of Directors of the Deutcher Werkbund in 1920.


Room of the Glass for the exhibition German Town, German Work, 1934.

Time of exceptional exhibitions

In 1926 she met Mies van der Rohe, with whom she had a professional and sentimental relationship for several years. She began working with him in the design of several exhibitions. Among them, is the design of the exhibition of the "Residential Cologne of Modern Housing Weissenhof" in Stuttgart. In this exhibition showed industrial products, glass, textiles and other textile designs of the Bauhaus. Lilly Reich proposes a space divided into exhibitors through white self-supporting panels with some labels and very pronounced graffiti.

Another exhibition in which Mies and Reich worked was the "Glass Room", in which they made a series of rooms (study, dining room and living room) with furniture designed by themselves that allowed to differentiate the use of each space, leaning on the color and textures of the pavement glass and linoleum.

An interesting third exhibition is the "Velvet and Silk Café" at the Exhibition of "Women's Fashion" in 1927. Mies and Reich propose a free-space space, creating spaces with large curtains of silk, rayon and velvet, hanging from chromed steel tubular structures, placed orthogonally.⁽²⁾

While she was a member of Mies van der Rohe, she made furniture designs of great importance, such as the two most famous chairs in the world: the German Pavilion in Barcelona and the Tugendhat House.⁽³⁾ The interior design and furnishings of the Erich Wolf Brick House (1925), the Lange House (1930) or the Philip Johnson Apartment (1931).


Chair of Barcelona made by Lilly Reich in the German Pavilion of Mies Van der Rohe of Barcelona, 1929. (Model MR90).

Pavilion of the International Exhibition of Barcelona

The German Pavilion in Barcelona was designed by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich as the German Pavilion for the Barcelona International Exhibition held in Montjuïc in 1929. It was designed to host the official reception at the inauguration presided over by Alfonso XIII King together to the German authorities.

In this symbolic work of the Modern Movement, the furniture in whose design participates in a decisive way Lilly Reich is particularly relevant, among them the Barcelona Chair is one of the most important furniture pieces of the last century. It was designed in 1929 for the Pavilion of the International Exhibition of Barcelona and has become one of the best known works of the architect Mies van der Rohe, although it was made in collaboration with Lilly Reich. It was designed to serve as a seat for the kings of Spain, Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenia, at the opening ceremony of the exhibition.⁽⁴⁾

The original design of this furniture has a polished stainless steel structure, while the seat and backrest surfaces are made of pig leather. It also has a shape based on the chair curulis, a type of chair used by Roman magistrates. Thanks to the harmonious proportions, the form and the materials of the work, they turned Barcelona's chair into almost a sculpture.

In 1950, adjustments were made in furniture design to mass produce it. Stainless steel and seamless welding will be the new materials of the chair, as well as replacing the expensive pigskin used in the original chair with bovine leather.


Lilly Reich in a Bauhaus class with her students, 1932.

Teacher at the Bauhaus

Lilly Reich had already had offers to teach. In 1928, she rejected the proposal to run a new fashion institute in Munich, due to his professional commitments. On January 5, 1932, after the resignation of Gunta for political reasons, Mies van der Rohe (who had arrived at the address in September 1930), offers Lilly Reich to teach at the Bauhaus in Dessau, leading the carpentry workshops, metallurgy and mural painting, which later became one, the Interior Design Workshop, in which he managed to value the textile works. Reich was one of the few female teachers of this school.⁽⁵⁾

Architecture

The Tugendhat House was commissioned by the marriage Fritz and Grete Tugendhat to Mies van der Rohe in 1928. It is located in Brno, Czech Republic. The Tugendhat marriage gave the architect total freedom, they even entrusted him with the interior design and the furniture of the house. Therefore, Mies van der Rohe was assisted by Lilly Reich as interior designer of the house.

Lilly Reich designed the Tugendhat chair and the Brno chair for this home. They were upholstered in silver-gray, emerald green leather, ruby ​​red velvet or white skin. It should be noted that both the Tugendhat chair and the Barcelona, ​​despite having a merely industrial appearance are a great work of craftsmanship, they are made by hand and in very small quantities. The beauty of these chairs is still a sign of distinction, elegance and luxury.⁽⁶⁾

In 1937, Lilly Reich, together with Annemarie Wilke, participated in the German Pavilion led by Mies van der Rohe for the Universal Exhibition in Paris, an exhibition of the German textile and clothing industry. ⁽⁷⁾

In 1938, Mies van der Rohe moved to Chicago while Lilly Reich remained in Germany, remaining in charge of the personal file of Mies, saving from World War II more than 2000 drawings that are currently part of the MoMA archive.

Among the Lilly Reich projects it is worth highlighting the block of minimal linear structure apartments made for the exhibition of German architecture in Berlin in 1931. It was a proposal for a minimum housing with a single space divided with furniture that allows carrying out the activities of the house and of work at a time. For example, the kitchen is a piece of furniture that meets the minimum needs through a simple wardrobe. Their projects respond to the search for maximum simplicity, efficiency and minimum daily care.

After World War II, she reopened his architecture, design and fashion studio, where she designed neon lamps for Siemens in 1946, the design of furniture for Edith Greenogh and the remodeling of apartments in the districts of Dahlem and Charlottenburg. Lilly Reich's studio was open until his death in 1947.

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