Barcelona Mies Pavilion model

Description

The Barcelona Pavilion was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and life partner Lilly Reich as the German National Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition. It is an emblematic work of the Modern Architecture Movement, built of glass, steel and different kinds of marble, and has been exhaustively studied and interpreted, as well as having inspired the works of several generations of architects.

The original building only lasted a year in its place. In 1930, following the end of the International Exhibit, the pavilion was entirely removed from its spot by the Palau Sant Jordi. The Staatliches Bauhaus school – where Ludwig Mies van der Rohe studied and developed his design identity -, however, went on to give birth to some of the most important XX Century architects, and would take credit for the construction of emblematic buildings like the Fagus Factory, Lake Shore Drive, the Barcelona Pavilion, the Weissenhofsiedlung, the Tugendhat House, the IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) Institute of Design, the Farnsworth House, the Seagram Building, The Langham, the Dominion Center, the Crown Hall, the Riehl House, Max-Liebling’s House, the Neue Nationalgalerie, the Lafayette Park, the White City of Tel-Aviv, the Haus am Horn, and the Staatliches Bauhaus itself.

It wasn’t until 1983 when, after decades of requests for the pavilion to be rebuilt, works to raise it again began in its original 1929 placement. On June 2nd 1986, Barcelona awoke to see the building finished with the exact same materials used for its construction, respecting as much as possible the original outlay thought by Mies van der Rohe. It is still possible today to see the base of one of the structural columns installed in the area back in the Universal Exhibition times.

Important artists related with the Bauhaus School include Heinrich von Eckardt, Peter Behrens, Konrad Wachsmann, Marcel Breuer, Henry van de Velde, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Josef Esters, Lilly Reich, Walter Gropius, Theo Van Doesburg, Bruno Paul, Hannes Meyer, Johannes Itten, Herbert Bayer, László Moholy-Nagy, and Paul Klee.