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Mies Barcelona Chair?
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The Mies Barcelona Chair was designed by Lilly Reich and Mies. An Icon of modern classic design, an international symbol of good taste,perhaps the classiest chair you can own. The Barcelona Chair is all of these things and more. It is so much a part of the modern interior landscape that we might be forgiven for feeling a certain familial loyalty to it and to its designer. Mies Van Der Rohe is celebrated the world over for his designs. His insight genius and his courage have been heralded around the world... and yet... there is a dark and unpleasant omission in this glittering version of events Mies Van Der Rohe's Barcelona Chair was not designed by Mies alone! Multiple records state conclusively that this honor should be shared by his co-designer a female architect and designer by the name of Lilly Reich 1885 - 1947. Confined to traditionally acceptable female careers Lilly Reich began her working life as a designer of textiles and women's apparel - but in 1912 she joined the Deutsch Werkbund - an organization often credited with the first seeds of modern design - and the precursor to the Bauhaus School She worked in the studio of the famous Bauhaus designer Josef Hoffman and by 1915 she had developed a professional reputation sufficient to be given increasing levels of responsibility at the Werkbund.In 1920 She became the first female to be made director of the Deutsch Werkbund. It was also through the Werkbund that Reich met Mies. In the twelve years leading up to 1938 when Mies emigrated to the US, they were inseparable. Even after Mies left Germany Lily Reich continued to manage his personal and business affairs until her own death at age 62 in 1947. She was at least as skilled a designer as Mies, she was probably more articulate than he. Those who knew them regard her as the detail and execution person, and Mies as the broad conceptualist. Reserved Mies rarely solicited anybody's comments but was always eager to discuss design with her. Together they designed the Barcelona Chair. But history has played a cruel trick and as forgotten Lilly Reich. Many people maintain that this was never Mies' doing, that he never denied her contribution, but his quiet nature did not make him a vocal supporter either. Born and raised in a chauvernistic society Lilly herself was disinclined to self promotion - and publically played only a traditionally supportive female role. Today Lilly's many fans and chroniclers like to point out that Mies' fame as a furniture designer and exhibition designer were almost entirely attributable to the works that he produced during his years with Lilly, and that after he moved to the US in 1939 (without Lilly) he produced no successful furniture designs at all. |
About Furniture
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