Lilly Reich

Lilly Reich believed that all creative design was tied to the materials and uses of the object and to the techniques with which it was made. Her work as a designer of exhibitions, of clothing and furniture, and of buildings in the Germany of the 1920s and '30s adhered to this essential criterion. Her most important role was unequivocably as an exhibition designer: for over twenty-five years, her distinctive installations allowed the materials and the content of the display to act as its primary determining features.
Reich had no formal training in design or architecture, but she learned dressmaking and various craft techniques early on, and her talent in these areas was soon recognized by a circle of women in the avant-garde design field. By 1911 Reich had earned commissions for a department store display and for the interior design and furnishings of a youth center. The event that made this career a life-long pursuit came in 1912, when she joined the Deutsche Werkbund, an organization that promoted German design through exhibitions and educational programs. Her commitment to and distinguished work for the Werkbund were deservedly rewarded in 1920, when she became the first woman elected to the board of directors.
In 1927 Reich began a collaboration with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe that would last until the late 1930s. She always retained her own professional office, even when working with Mies on such large-scale and consequential projects as The Dwelling in Our Time. Reich participated in this exhibition as both designer and architect, and she was responsible for five full-scale installations: two apartments, a single-family house, and exhibits of exterior and interior finishing materials and furnishings. The precise and austere drawings shown on these pages, each stamped "Atelier L. Reich", show the plan and elevation for a textile exhibit and a technical detail of a rack for a display of wallpapers. Clearly representing Reich's working process, the drawings are a construction tool rather than an end in themselves. The plan and elevation drawing for the textile exhibit also reveals the graceful, free-flowing spaces that Reich could create using only the materials of the exhibit themselves as partitions between the different sections of the display. The fabrics on show seem to hold themselves up, with few visible signs of underlying support. This minimalist aesthetic discloses Reich's unwavering and enduring commitment to modernist principles of function and simplicity.