Lily Reich had a training in embroidery when she in 1908 began working for Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte. In 1911 Reich began studying at the Höhere Fachschule für Dekorationskunst in Berlin under Else Oppler-Legband, while also working on the design for shop windows and interior architecture, including a youth center in Charlottenburg and a worker’s apartment for the exhibition Die Frau in Haus und Beruf in Berlin 1912. During the same year, Reich joined the Deutscher Werkbund, for which she became the first woman on the board in 1920.
In 1914, Reich founded her own studio from which she a.o. designed the Haus der Frau display at the first Deutscher Werkbund exhibition in Cologne. In 1924 Reich founded her own design and fashion studio in Frankfurt am Main which moved to Berlin three years later.
Reich began working with the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and together they worked on the exhibition halls of the Deutscher Werkbund’s which resulted in the area Weissenhofsiedlung. For the exhibition, van der Rohe, who had become vice president of the Werkbund in 1926, designed a house with portable walls, as well as interiors including the tube steel armchairs MR10 and MR20 Weissenhof sessel which were an innovation in the design world.
In 1927 Mies van der Rohe also exhibited the MR10 and MR20 at the Die Mode der Dame exhibition in Berlin, where he, once again together with Reich had made the stand/café for the German Silk manufacturers. They also worked together on the International Exposition in Barcelona in 1929. For the later they designed the Barcelona chair.
For the Deutsche Bauausstellung in Berlin 1931, Reich designed a groundfloor residental building, the interior design of two apartments. For Mies van der Rohe, Riech designed several furniture for building by his design, of these pieces the GT79 table, made by Thonet with steel pipe legs and a glass top is one of the most known.
In 1932 Reich became the head of the finishing department and the weaving workshop of the Bauhaus school in Dessau and Berlin. Two years later she designed the glass, porcelain and ceramics section at the exhibition Deutsches Volk – Deutsches Arbeit in Berlin. Together with van der Rohe, Reich designed the textile industry section of the German pavilion at the World’s Fair in Paris 1937.
During the WWII, Reich Berlin studio was destroyed in an air raid. After the war Reich was a lecturer at the Hochschule für Bildenede Kunst while also working in architecture, design, textiles, and fashion from her new studio in Berlin. She also continued her work with Deutscher Werkbund.
Lily Reich died in 1947 at the age of 62. Reich’s recognition as a designer came almost 50 years after her death, with a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York 1996. It has been speculated that Lilly Reich was behind Mies' international success as a furniture designer.
