Barcelona Pavilion

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Barcelona Pavilion

Pabelln Alemn (Spanish)

Pavell Alemany (Catalan)

Alternative
names

German Pavilion

General information
Type

Exhibition building

Architectura
Modernism
l style
Location

Barcelona, Spain

412214N
Coordinates 20900ECoordinates:
412214N 20900E
Constructio
1928
n started
Completed

1929

Inaugurated 27 May 1929

Government of Germany
Technical details

Structural

steel frame with glass and

system

polished stone
Design and construction

Architect

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

The Barcelona Pavilion (Catalan: Pavell alemany; Spanish: Pabelln alemn; "German
Pavilion"), designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, was the German Pavilion for the 1929
International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain. This building was used for the official opening of
the German section of the exhibition.[1] It is an important building in the history of modern
architecture, known for its simple form and its spectacular use of extravagant materials, such as
marble, red onyx and travertine. The same features of minimalism and spectacular can be applied
to the prestigious furniture specifically designed for the building, among which the iconic
Barcelona chair. It has inspired many important modernist buildings, including Michael Manser's
Capel Manor House in Kent.
Contents

1 Concept

2 Building

3 Sculpture

4 Interventions programme

5 Gallery

6 See also

7 References

8 Further reading

9 External links

Concept

Mies was offered the commission of this building in 1928 after his successful administration of
the 1927 Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart. The German Republic entrusted Mies with the artistic
management and erection of not only the Barcelona Pavilion, but for the buildings for all the
German sections at the 1929 International Exhibition. However, Mies had severe time constraints
he had to design the Barcelona Pavilion in less than a yearand was also dealing with
uncertain economic conditions.

In the years following World War I, Germany started to turn around. The economy started to
recover after the 1924 Dawes Plan. The pavilion for the International Exhibition was supposed to
represent the new Weimar Germany: democratic, culturally progressive, prospering, and
thoroughly pacifist; a self-portrait through architecture.[1] The Commissioner, Georg von
Schnitzler said it should give "voice to the spirit of a new era".[2] This concept was carried out
with the realization of the "Free plan" and the "Floating roof".[1]
Building

Plan of the Barcelona Pavilion

Mies's response to the proposal by von Schnitzler was radical. After rejecting the original site
because of aesthetic reasons, Mies agreed to a quiet site at the narrow side of a wide, diagonal
axis, where the pavilion would still offer viewpoints and a route leading to one of the exhibition's
main attractions, the Poble Espanyol.[3]
The pavilion was going to be bare, no trade exhibits, just the structure accompanying a single
sculpture and purpose-designed furniture (the Barcelona Chair). This lack of accommodation
enabled Mies to treat the Pavilion as a continuous space; blurring inside and outside. "The design
was predicated on an absolute distinction between structure and enclosurea regular grid of
cruciform steel columns interspersed by freely spaced planes".[2] However, the structure was
more of a hybrid style, some of these planes also acted as supports.[2] The floor plan is very
simple. The entire building rests on a plinth of travertine. A southern U-shaped enclosure, also of
travertine, helps form a service annex and a large water basin. The floor slabs of the pavilion
project out and over the poolonce again connecting inside and out. Another U-shaped wall on
the opposite side of the site also forms a smaller water basin. This is where the statue by Georg
Kolbe sits. The roof plates, relatively small, are supported by the chrome-clad, cruciform
columns. This gives the impression of a hovering roof.[1] Robin Evans said that the reflective
columns appear to be struggling to hold the "floating" roof plane down, not to be bearing its
weight.[2]
Mies wanted this building to become "an ideal zone of tranquillity" for the weary visitor, who
should be invited into the pavilion on the way to the next attraction. Since the pavilion lacked a
real exhibition space, the building itself was to become the exhibit. The pavilion was designed to
"block" any passage through the site, rather, one would have to go through the building. Visitors
would enter by going up a few stairs, and due to the slightly sloped site, would leave at ground
level in the direction of the Poble Espanyol. The visitors were not meant to be led in a straight
line through the building, but to take continuous turnabouts. The walls not only created space,

but also directed visitor's movements. This was achieved by wall surfaces being displaced
against each other, running past each other, and creating a space that became narrower or wider.
Another unique feature of this building is the exotic materials Mies chooses to use. Plates of
high-grade stone materials like veneers of Tinos verde antico marble and golden onyx as well as
tinted glass of grey, green, white, as well as translucent glass, perform exclusively as spatial
dividers.
Because this was planned as an exhibition pavilion, it was intended to exist only temporarily. The
building was torn down in early 1930, not even a year after it was completed. However, thanks to
black-and-white photos and original plans, a group of Spanish architects reconstructed the
pavilion permanently between 1983 and 1986.[1]
Sculpture

The Pavilion was not only a pioneer for construction forms with a fresh, disciplined
understanding of space, but also for modelling new opportunities for an association of free art
and architecture. Mies placed Georg Kolbe's Alba ("Dawn")[4] in the small water basin, leaving
the larger one all the more empty. The sculpture also ties into the highly reflective materials Mies
usedhe chose the place where these optical effects would have the strongest impact; the
building offers multiple views of Alba. "From now on, in the sense of equality for juxtaposing
building and visual work, sculptures were no longer to be applied retrospectively to the building,
but rather to be a part of the spatial design, to help define and interpret it. To the day, one of the
most notable examples is the Barcelona Pavilion".[3]
Interventions programme

Since the Pavilion's reconstruction in the 1980s, the Mies van der Rohe Foundation has invited
leading artists and architects to temporarily alter the Pavilion. These installations and alterations,
called "interventions", have kept the pavilion as a node of debate on architectural ideas and
practices. The list of invited people includes architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa who
added spiral acrylic interior walls,[5] artist Ai Weiwei who refilled two pools with coffee and
milk,[6] Andrs Jaque [7] who revealed the pavilion's so far disregarded basement and its role in
hiding the daily making of the site's experience, Enric Miralles, Antoni Muntadas who brought to
the pavilion the smell of the MoMA archives where its memory is preserved and Jordi Bernad
who removed the pavilion's glass doors.[8]
Gallery

The reconstructed Barcelona Pavilion

Floor slab projecting out and over the water

One of the steel columns

The Barcelona Chair and unique wall materials

Alba by Georg Kolbe[4]

Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 was a world's fair held in Seville, Spain,

References
1.
Zimmerman, Claire (2006). Mies van der Rohe. Hong Kong: Taschen. ISBN 3-82283643-5.
Weston, Richard (2004). Key Building of the Twentieth Century. W.W. Norton
and Company. ISBN 0-393-73145-6.
Berger, Ursel (2007). Barcelona Pavilion. Berlin: Jovis. ISBN 3-939633-06-2.
"The Mies van der Rohe Pavilion". Miesbcn.com. Retrieved 2012-08-15.
Etherington, Rose (25 November 2008). "Mies van der Rohe Pavilion installation
by SANAA". De Zeen.
"Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei Transforms the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion". Art Daily.
11 December 2009.
"Architecture and/of the Other. PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society by Andrs
Jaque". Quaderns.
1.

Frearson, Amy (12 April 2014). "Jordi Bernad removes doors from
Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion". De Zeen.

Further reading

Dodds, George (2005). Building Desire. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-41532524-2.

Rubio, Ignasi (1993). Mies Van Der Rohe : Barcelona Pavilion. New York:
Watson-Guptill Publications. ISBN 84-252-1607-9.

Campbell, Katie (2007). Icons of Twentieth-Century Landscape Design.

Lapunzina, Alejandro (2005). Architecture of Spain. Westport: Greenwood

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Barcelona-Pavillon.

Fundacin Mies van der Rohe. "1929. The Barcelona Pavilion". Archived from
the original on 25 January 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-14.

Views of the replica German Pavilion

Image gallery on the Barcelona Pavilion

Photos of Barcelona Pavilion and Barcelona Chair

Werkbund Exhibition of 1927

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