BERLIN.- With the first complete presentation of the furniture from Haus Lemke in Berlin the Kunstgewerbemuseum is displaying one of the most extensive original interior designs preserved from the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Haus Lemke was built in 1932/33 and is internationally known today as the ‘Mies van der Rohe Haus’. Located on Obersee lake in Alt-Hohenschönhausen (Lichtenberg district), the building, designed on a lakeside plot with extensive gardens, surprises with its modest dimensions.The design reflects the moderate budget of the Lemke couple, who lived without staff and wanted a ‘small and modest house’ that could be ‘extended towards the garden on fine days’.

After a series of different preliminary designs, which also included two- storey variants, finally – and partly for cost reasons – an L-shaped house type emerged. The single-storey building faces the garden. The bedrooms, living room and study form around a terrace shaded by a walnut tree. The level transition from the interior to the garden via the seamlessly adjoining terrace creates a special connection between the interior of the house and the surrounding nature.

The furnishings, based on designs by Mies van der Rohe's office, were installed after the building was handed over in April 1933. During this time, Mies presented his initial plans for the study, but these were not implemented. The planning was presumably continued in 1934 with Lilly Reich. It is most likely that former employees such as Friedrich Hirz were also consulted The study and bedroom were furnished entirely according to the new designs, while already existing furniture was used in the living room. According to Martha Lemke's recollection, the furnishing was not completed until 1937. It was featured in the Deutsche Bauzeitung that same year with a photograph by Max Krajewsky, who took a series of interior photographs at the time.

The furnishings are in direct line with the design developed by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich since the mid-1920s. Despite the spectacular modern tubular steel furniture, veneered wood furniture remained the basis of the interior design. In the style of the sophisticated interior design of their time, they combine the material aesthetics of fine wood, bound in strictly geometric forms and spatial proportions , with the equally elaborate workmanship of stone, glass, and metal surfaces. Haus Lemke was the last building project realised before Mies' final emigration and concludes a series that extends from his own Berlin apartment on Am Karlsbad (1926) to Haus Wolf in Guben (1927), the two Krefeld houses Esters and Lange (1928) and finally Haus Tugendhat in Brno (1930).

With the end of the war and the expulsion of the owners by the Red Army in 1945, the house began to be used for a variety of purposes, including as a car repair shop, a laundry and a warehouse of the State Security.

Until 1989, this led to extensive conversions and dismantling, and to changes to the entire ensemble of house and garden. Listed as a historic monument by the East Berlin municipal authorities in 1977, it came under the municipal authority of the district, now Berlin-Lichtenberg, in 1990, as a result of the peaceful revolution and civic engagement. The house was opened to the public and, with its renaming as the ‘Mies van der Rohe Haus’, was given a contemporary use as an international venue for con- temporary art, architecture and research on the life and work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Finally, between 2000 and 2002, a thorough renovation was carried out in accordance with conservation principles.

Karl Lemke was the owner of the renowned Otto von Holten, Art and Printing Works Berlin and Managing Director of a graphic arts company. Among his customers were institutions and artists. After his death in the early 1970s Martha Lemke continued the good contacts with the museum world. She bequeathed her estate to various Berlin museums, and so the furniture from the Haus Lemke found its way to the West-Berlin Kunstgewerbemuseum in 1984.