Presentation “Lilly Reich in Barcelona: The Materialization of a Neglected Authorship”

A Lilly Reich in Barcelona: The Materialization of a Neglected Authorship (Fundació Mies van der Rohe), Laura Martínez de Guereñu examines the work Lilly Reich developed in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Stuttgart before partnering with Mies van der Rohe.

Lilly Reich in Barcelona: The Materialization of a Neglected Authorship also documents the work the two later created in a creative tandem: from the famous Glass Room at the Die Wohnung exhibition in Stuttgart and the Velvet and Silk Café at Die Mode der Dame in Berlin—both in 1927—to their masterpiece in the German section of the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition, the German Pavilion.

A detailed analysis of these collaborative projects reveals Lilly Reich’s contribution to the team’s work. Her association with Mies granted her access to major exhibition projects, where she was able to fully express her creative sensitivity. However, that same partnership ultimately eclipsed the critical reception of her own work.

Lilly Reich in Barcelona offers a counter-narrative to the presumed division of labor between the pavilion’s design and that of the exhibitions—between Mies and Lilly Reich—a narrative that Reich herself had no opportunity to refute. She died shortly after the end of World War II, having catalogued, packed, and safeguarded the legacy of her former partner—who had emigrated to America—from the bombings in Berlin. This task, carried out by Lilly Reich during the war, ensured the critical fortune of both Mies’s solo and collaborative work in Europe, but sadly not her own.

The publication of Lilly Reich in Barcelona: The Materialization of a Neglected Authorship will serve to reclaim Reich’s legacy in an event featuring the book’s author Laura Martínez de Guereñu, art historian Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, and architect and director of the Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona, Anna Ramos.