Exposición Internacional de Barcelona. Catalogo Oficial de la Seccion Alemania

(Lilly Reich) (Mies van der Rohe), 1929

[Junta Nacional Alemana de Expos y Ferias]. Exposición Internacional de Barcelona. Catalogo Oficial de la Seccion Alemania. Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1929. 20.8 cm, 127, [32] pp.; illustrated throughout: 1 folding map, 23 b/w plates reproducing maps, floor plans, and architectural renderings, a further 12 b/w illus. from photos, with index followed by 32 unnumbered pages of ads for German exposition vendors. A broadside advertisement for a Spanish vendor laid in. Fore edges and front matter foxed, rest of interior relatively clean and tight; in stapled wrappers worn with foxing, discoloration, and a small repair.

A rare publication highlighting Lilly Reich’s prominent role as artistic director of the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition, including her collaboration with Mies van der Rohe on the iconic German Pavilion and her plans for the other German sections. The simple and elegant catalogue was designed(?) by Reich and printed in Berlin, its chapters reproduce (from Reich’s drawings) the floor plans for the exhibition palaces and offer lengthy detail on the vendors and materials in each exhibition (industrial and applied arts, graphic arts, agriculture, electricity, communication and transport, textiles, construction and building materials, film, etc.).

Reich was selected as the Barcelona exposition’s artistic director following her success with van der Rohe at the Deutscher Werkbund’s “Die Wohnung ’ exhibition in Stuttgart (1927). She was placed in charge of the Barcelona exhibition design and focused much of her energy on the interiors, including furniture, textiles, and bespoke display architecture. Most famously, she and Mies van der Rohe designed two chairs used in the German Pavilion, the MR20 and the “Barcelona” chairs. The MR20 is reproduced at the rear of the catalogue in an advertisement for furniture-maker Jös Muller. The advertising section and exhibitor lists feature a number of businesses associated with architecture and applied arts at the Werkbund and Bauhaus, as well as those notorious for their later association with National Socialism and slave labor: including a four-page spread for IG Farben and its associated brands; Deutsche Luft Hansa; Berlin-Karlsruher Industrie-Werke AG; and WUMAG (Görlitz).

The history of the collaboration between Lilly Reich and Mies van der Rohe was recovered in a 1996 exhibition at MoMA, which drew from the 800+ Reich drawings in the van der Rohe archive at the museum. These drawings confirm that Reich produced many if not all of the plans reproduced in the present catalogue.

We have identified 3 copies of the Spanish-language guide in public collections. Only one in the US, at Stanford, the others in Spain at the Reina Sofia and possibly the Museo de Pontevedra. A German edition was also published, with fewer pages and, according to the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek records, only 8 plates (vs the 35 appearing in the present copy). The only OCLC holding recorded in North America for the German edition is at the Getty. No modern auction records appear for either edition.

(HOLD)