Lilly Reich in Barcelona: The Materialization of a Neglected Authorship studies the work that Lilly Reich (1885–1947) developed in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Stuttgart before partnering with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969), as well as the work they later produced together in creative tandem: from the famous Glass Room in The Dwelling exhibition in Stuttgart and the Velvet and Silk Cafe in Women’s Fashion, 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 teamwork and provides an interpretive framework for an intuition that already existed but which architects and critics left unarticulated for decades. Lilly Reich was an architect and designer of strong character, firm in negotiating her contracts, and respected on the construction site. Her partnership with Mies gave her access to major exhibition projects, where she was able to fully deploy her creative sensibility. However, that same partnership eventually overshadowed the critical reception of her own work.
In the words of Magdalena Droste, author of the foreword, the book offers “an impressive and convincing counter-narrative to the canonical interpretation of Barcelona 1929 in architectural literature.” It presents a counter-history to the supposed division of tasks between the design of the pavilion and that of the exhibitions, between Mies and Lilly Reich, a version that Reich herself never had the chance to refute. She died shortly after the end of the Second World War, having catalogued, packed, and safeguarded from the bombing of Berlin the legacy of her former partner, who had emigrated to America. That task, carried out by Lilly Reich during the war, ensured the critical fortune of Mies’s individual and shared work in Europe, but, unfortunately, not her own.
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