Having explored the Montjuic area and visited the Miro Museum, we descended the majestic steps of the Museu Nacional de Catalunya into Montjuic park, so that we could visit Mies van der Rohe's iconic pavillion. It is one of the buildings I never tire of visiting, and being inside it is immensely relaxing.
It was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. It was originally built as the German Pavilion of the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona and was used for the official opening of the German section of the exhibition. It's a very important building in the history of modern architecture, because of its simple form and its spectacular use of extravagant materials such as marble, red onyx and travertine. The original structure was demolished in 1930 and it was reconstructed in 1986. The structure has laid the foundations of modern architecture and consequently inspired many important modernist buildings.
The pavilion was designed to 'block' any passage through the site, rather, one would have to go through the building and then enter by going up a few stairs
The floor plan is very simple. The entire building rests on a plinth of travertine. A southern U-shaped enclosure helps form a service annex and this large water basin. The floor slabs of the pavilion project out and over the pool, thus connecting inside and out.
Another U-shaped wall on the opposite side of the site also forms a smaller water basin which you can see on the far right in this picture,
and this is where the statue by George Kolbe sits, the only sculpture in the whole site as the pavilion was to be bare, with no exhibits, leaving only the structure accompanying this single sculpture and the especially designed furniture, the Barcelona chairs. This lack of accommodation enabled Van der Rohe to treat the Pavilion as a continuous space, blurring the inside and outside.
Van der Rohe wanted this building to become 'an ideal zone of tranquility' for the weary visitor, and this has certainly been achieved.
The roof seems to be hovering.
We decided to start our exploration from the right side of the S, the one nearer the steps we had just come up on.
We noted the Tinos verde antico marble on the wall
and once we entered the one and only main room of this building we noticed the golden onyx of the spatial divider.
The Barcelona chairs and stools the only furniture in this minimalist space.
The Pavillion 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. Van der Rohe placed George Kolbe's Alba (Dawn) in the small water basin, leaving the larger one all the more empty.
The sculpture also ties into the highly reflective materials he used - he 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 appllied 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 Pavillion'.
I have a poster of this sculpture in our bathroom in the house in England, and as I lie in the bath I can look at it. It's the most relaxing, calming thing, and that is precisely because the sculpture is part of the design. I bought the poster during our first trip to Barcelona all those years ago, and I get the same pleasure every time as if I was looking at it anew.
you can see the larger basin and the second smaller room of the building which serves as the shop. We turned right into the small garden
we left the garden, and on our right the area of the large basin
the main area in front of us
We are not meant to be led in a straight line through the building, but to take continuous turnabouts. The walls not only create space, but also direct our movement. This is created by wall and glass surfaces being displaced against each other, running past each other, and creating a space that becomes narrower or wider.
and we left this amazing place
into the park
towards the Museo Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, and then Placa de Espanya to get the metro.
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