Reich returned to Berlin by 1911. There she began to design furniture, textiles and women's clothes. This experience was to be formative for her, giving her a particular interest in contrasting textures and materials, as well as specific skills with regard to the use of textiles in furniture. She also worked as a shop window decorator at this time. In 1911, after working for many of Berlin's most fashionable department stores, Reich designed store windows and clothing installations for Wertheim Department Store of Berlin. In 1912, two crucial events helped establish her reputation as an influential designer and exhibition organizer. First, she designed well-received interiors for a worker's apartment and two stores for the Lyzeum-Klub exhibition
Die Frau in Haus und Beruf (Woman at Home and at Work). That same year, she was elected to membership in the
German Werkbund, or German Work Federation, an organization founded in 1907 that aimed to ally art and industry as a means to improve German-made products and designs, a group similar to the Vienna Workshop whose purpose was to help improve competitiveness of German companies in the global market. The Werkbund sponsored lectures for shopkeepers and consumers as well as sought the assistance of museums to influence public taste through exhibitions. In 1912 she designed a sample working-class flat in the Berlin Gewerkschaftshaus, or Trade Union House. It received much praise for the clarity and functionalism of the furnishings. The 1913 Werkbund yearbook carried a series of photographs which included one by Reich: Elephant Pharmacy, Berlin 1913. From 1921 to 1922, Reich organized and prepared two large exhibitions to be shown at the Newark Museum in
Newark, New Jersey. The first exhibition, entitled "The Applied Arts," consisted entirely of women's clothing and accessories, seeking to promote the revival of German fashion and increase cooperation between artists and manufacturers. The second exhibition was an enormous undertaking with the display of more than 1,600 objects, many chosen by Reich, to showcase the quality and breadth of German industrial design. Over 4,000 people visited the exhibition between 18 April and 31 May 1922 and the Newark Museum acquired over sixty-five objects from the exhibition, including a children's clothing design by Reich. The show did not travel in the United States as hoped, given a strong anti-German sentiment subsequent to the First World War. Nonetheless, the show had a profound effect on American design and its influences may be seen in the work of U.S. designers after this date. From 1924 to 1926, she worked at the
Messeamt, or Trade Fair Office, in Frankfurt am Main. There, she was in charge of organizing and designing trade fairs. It was there that she met
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, vice president of the Deutscher Werkbund. Writing about Reich's tenure at the Bauhaus, art historian
Adrian Sudhalter states that Reich "also manage[d] much of the daily administration of the Bauhaus for Mies." Her tenure was short-lived as the Bauhaus was closed in 1933 by the Nazis, who referred to it as an "oriental palace" and "synagogue" filled with "Bolshevists" and "cultural Marxists" dedicated to
degenerate art. In 1934 she had an exhibition called the "Material Show: Wood" exhibit, as well as "German People – German Work". In 1937, Reich displayed an installation at the
1937 Paris World's Fair. Her installation would become a part of
Albert Speer's Nazi Pavilion, during an extremely tense World's Fair. She was forced to resign due to ill health in 1945. She was instrumental in the revival of the Deutsche Werkbund, but died in Berlin before its formal re-establishment in 1950. She died on 14 December 1947, aged 62.
Work with Mies van der Rohe Through her involvement with the Werkbund, Reich met
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and moved from Frankfurt to Berlin to work with him in 1926. She was Mies' personal and professional partner for 13 years from 1925 until his emigration to the U.S. in 1938. It is said that they were constant companions, working together on curating and implementing exhibitions for the Werkbund, as well as designing
modern furniture as part of larger architectural commissions, such as the
Barcelona Pavilion in 1929 and the
Tugendhat House in
Brno. Two of their best known modern furniture designs from this period are the
Barcelona Chair and
Brno Chair. Albert Pfeiffer, Vice President of Design and Management at
Knoll, has been researching and lecturing on Reich for some time. He points out that: Reich collaborated and co-designed the Brno Chair, the famous
Barcelona Chair, and the
Barcelona Pavilion along with Mies on behalf of the German government for the 1929 World Exhibition in Barcelona, Spain. Lilly Reich traveled to the United States, England, and Austria to study and work with the designers of her time. She also curated exhibitions on behalf of her government. == Legacy ==