Barcelona Pavilion - Mies van der Rohe (1928-29)
Situation:
Above: Photograph of the Barcelona Pavilion
Below: Elevation oft he Barcelona Pavilion
Context Prior To Construction
Physical context:
Site is surrounded by green.
Connection point between an open square,
the palace of Alfonso XIII and the entrance to
the Spanish village.
Non-physical context:
World exhibition 1929.
Pavilion for Germany.
Opening of the Weimar Republic to technical
and cultural innovations.
Aims Of Architect
Present the at-that-time Germany with its
achievements, goals, its character and
search for clarity and integrity.
Reacting to the given qualities of the
prefixed site in his design project without
loosing his autonomy, provoking a positive
confrontation.
Plan of Pavilion
Means To Achieve Aims
The building is working as a kind of barrier and entrance at the same time to the
village behind it.
It’s positioned in the diagonal axis of the square to be in ideal viewing position and
for this reasons operates in two ways: as a steady pole as well as as a passage for
visitors.
With its low height, its open character and its upright position toward the palace, it’s
responding to the huge, closed frontage of the palace.
Through the basement and the missing stairs towards the square side it distances
itself from street level, which stands in contrast to the open atmosphere of the whole
building.
On the short sides it’s connected to the surrounding on one level and the nature
reaches to the edges of the building. By using materials as dark green Tinos there it
seams as if nature continues on the actually built area.
By shifted freestanding wall elements a lot of perspective of views are created and
the actual boundaries of inside and outside get lost.
So the surrounding hardly influences the perception of room in this building.
Modern Attitude:
New idea of creating room for just staging room itself. It’s all about the endless room,
created by dividing a volume into pieces with a few single, unconnected surfaces.
The freestanding walls, which border the rooms, are the actual artwork in there:
huge “pictures”, with their different materials often forming a contrast to the clear
structure.
Variable floor plan composition by dividing structural and room-giving elements:
pillars take weight of the roof (placed in grid), walls are just defining the endless
volume.
Polarity of inside – outside was dissolved, definition of inside looses sense, walls
reach from under the ceiling to outside, floor is not restricted to the limitations of the
roof. Walls are unconnected – they are not forming closed spaces.
Evaluation Of The Solution

Mies van der Rohe managed it with his methods to transport an ideological idea as
well as to integrate it into the given physical context.

He created a starting point for visitors for not just experience the room inside the
pavilion itself but also to sense the relation to the room next to it.

At the same time he transported the idea of room as a centre, which is not
necessarily defined by statically needs.

Boundaries of all kinds, structural as well as concerning the inside/outside were

dissolved.

In that way he moreover referred to the political ideas of Germany in that time.

New Context Created By Building

Mies van der Rohe managed to create a work which not just became the emblem of the exhibition
but although the symbol for modern architecture.

His amazing ignorance of pure utility of room influenced the 20. Century architecture.

The idea of dividing architeture into structure and room-creating elements, and thereby loosing
boundaries.

Diagram demonstrating the building’s free and floorplan and the use of different materials for feature walls. Was a precursor for following generations of architects.