The Lilly Reich Grant, Equality in Architecture, Fundació Mies van der Rohe Photo, Catalan Award

The 2nd Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture

5 Nov 2020

The Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture 2020

The 2nd Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture has been awarded to the realization of the documentary “[On Set with] Lilly Reich”

Fundació Mies van der Rohe and Ajuntament de Barcelona have announced today, in a press conference held online, that the 2nd Lilly Reich Grant for Equality un Architecture has been awarded to the research proposal: “[On Set with] Lilly Reich” by Valencian architects Laura Lizondo Sevilla, Débora Domingo Calabuig and Avelina Prat García.

2nd Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture Winners:

photo : Diego Opazo

The event was attended by Anna Ramos Sanz (director of Fundació Mies van der Rohe) and the authors of the granted project, who explained their research proposal, as well as the participation of Zaida Muxí Martínez (jury member).

According to Janet Sanz Cid, president of Fundació Mies van der Rohe and Deputy Mayor for Ecology, Urban Planning, Infrastructure and Mobility ot the Barcelona City Council,”The support of resources such as the Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture is key to promoting the effort made by the academic world to generate a body of knowledge on the road to equality. Tools such as this grant make it possible to restore the vision, work and commitment of so many people in the world of architecture who have been underestimated now and before”.

photo : Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin © Irmela Schreiber, Karlsruhe

The Grant bears the name of the pioneer in the fields of design and architecture Lilly Reich in recognition to her legacy, relegated to a second term, if not non-existent- in the narrative and memory of the history of architecture and aims to support the study, dissemination and visibilisation of contributions to architecture that have been unduly relegated or forgotten, made by professionals who have suffered discrimination because of their personal conditions. It also aims to promote access in equal opportunities to the practice of architecture throughout the world.

For this reason and as a novelty to this year’s edition, a specific call for senior high school students has been incorporated in order to encourage them to carry out curricular research projects focused on revertint the invisibilizations in architecture “Lilly Reich Grant for Senior High School Research Projects”. Information sessions for High Schools will soon be held and, starting on 8 March the option for High School students who plan to submit their curricular research projects during the 2021-2022 school year will be open for a month.

In its prior edition, the Grant was awarded to the research proposal Re-enactment: Lilly Reich’s work occupies the Barcelona Pavilion by Laura Martínez de Guereñu. The research results highlighted the need to continue studying and making Lilly Reich’s character and work, thus the 2nd Lilly Reich Grant of Academic Research insists on in the knowledge and dissemination of this essential figure in the history of modern architecture.

Last September the admission period for proposals for this second edition closed with the satisfaction of havin receied 17 research projects from Germany, Chile, Mexico, The Netherlands, Argentina, Italy and Spain. A successful amount that doubles the number of proposals received in the first edition. The Jury that gathered online on the World Architecture Day, has considered these proposals and made their resolution, which is made public today:

The granted proposal

“[On Set with] Lilly Reich opts for the production and filming of a documentary as a means of disseminating the stated objective. It is a short film project that combines original documental sources with newly created visual material, and that wants to reflect the limitation of recognition in the professional field to this woman, as to so many others contrasting what she contributed (what was done) to what whas told about her (what was narrated). All this is ellaborated by means of a story that puts two timelines in parallel – the one of its production and the one of its historical representation- thus aspiring to identify the turning points for recovering the figure of Lilly Reich under conditions of equality.

The composition of the results will visibilize the specific contribution by Lilly Reich to the field architecture from her professional experience in the fields of design, ephemeral architectures and exhibition spaces and will point out the distortion in the representation of Lilly Reich due to the assumption of gender roles in the social and cultural context, not only of that moment but also through the following decades of the 20th century.

About the authors

Laura Lizondo Sevilla: Valencia 1979. Architect and PhD by Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de la Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). University Professor at UPV. Visiting scholar at the GSAPP, Columbia University (New York) and at Central Saint Martins, UAL (London). Director of the Blanca Valencia Chair and [En Blanco, Revista de Arquitectura]. The results of her research on Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich have been published in high impact scientific journals in the field of architecture and history of art.

Débora Domingo Calabuig: Valencia,1972. Architect and PhD by Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de la Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and École d’Architecture de ParisLa Défense (França). University Professor at UPV Professora Titular d’Universitat a la UPV. Deputy Director of Research (2012-2016) and Chief Editor of the VLC architecture Research Journal (until 2018). Member of the European Association for Architectural Education, Her interests include the methods, means and impact of architectural research, taking into account its social consideration.

Avelina Prat García: Valencia, 1972. Architect by Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de la Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and École d’Architecture de Paris-La Défense (França). She practiced the profesión before she devoted herself to film. Since 2004 she has been screenwriter and director of both fiction and documentary films. As a screenwriter she has taken part in the shooting of more than thirty full-length films alongside prestigious directors and is a programmer at the Valencia International Film Festival – Cinema Jove.

The Jury

An international jury, composed by three professionals linked to the fields of research and dissemination in architecture and the research and dissemination in the matter of equality, has been responsible for choosing the awarded project.

The jury of the present edition

Christiane Lange is an art historian, membre of the German Research Foundation – Project: “Raisonné catalogue of furniture and furniture design by Mies van der Rohe”. Lange is a fouding membre and president of “Projekt MIK e. V. ”Krefeld, Germany. Her research, exhibitions and films in recent years have focused on the European work of Mies van der Rohe, Lilly Reich and Bauhaus. In 2007 she was the curator of the first programme on the collaboration of Mies and Reich. In 2013 she produced a full-scale model of a Mies van der Rohe design MIES 1:1 The Golfclub Project with Robbrecht en Daem architecten.

Laura Martínez de Guereñu Elorza is an architect, historian and crític, specialised in Europe and its relationship with the transatlantic world during the 19th and 20th centuries.Her research focuses on issues such as the exploration of traces of modernity in pre-fascist Europe and its diaspora, the impact of educational legacies on built heritage, as well as the effect of changing ownership on the life and resilience of buildings.

Laura is Master in Design Studies with Distinction (History and Theory of Architecture) by Harvard University, where she remained for the following two years as a Visiting Fellow, as well as a SpecialAward winning and Phd in Architecture by Universidad de Navarra. She is a hired professor at the IE School of Architecture and Design.

She was awarded the first Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture and author of the exhibition Lilly Reich’s Work occupies the Barcelona Pavilion.

Zaida Muxí Martínez is an architect and urban planner with a degree by the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning (University of Buenos Aires), PhD by Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Sevilla and Professor at Escola Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona. Together with Josep Maria Montaner, she is co-director of the Masters Degree in Laboratory of the 21st Century Housing at Universitat Politècnica de Barcelona. She collaborates on the Cultura/s supplement of La Vanguardia. She is an expert in issues of space and gender.

According to the jury
“The selected proposal has three assets that have made it worthy of the award, the first one is the collective proposal that combines abilities, the second one is the suggested exhibitiondissemination format, which is a documentary and the third one is contrasting the contributions of Lilly Reich to what has been said about her, that is, the proposal of a dialogue between facts and historiography”. Zaida Muxí, one of the members of the jury.

According to the authors of the granted Project
“When we started working on this proposal we realised the great imbalance that existed between the professional work of Lilly Reich and the mentions that literature has made about her, projects and critics that build a part of the history of architecture. Historians hardly ever quote her, despite her regular presence in the profesional press of her time- We understood that we had to go back in search of the signs that would allow us to identify and decode her presence in history. Thus, we felt that the format of the documentary was the right one for a visual and temporal reconstruction and a more far-reaching dissemination”.

The Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture images / information received 051120

Previously on e-architect:

17 June 2020

The Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture

photo : Pepo Segura
The Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture