Enchanted

Serving as a representative pavilion of the Weimar Republic in the 1929 Barcelona Exposition, the architecture itself should represent the state identity and economic viability of a post First World War Germany. Mies and Lily approached this from the choice of materials, following Behrens and Gropius, representing the industrial capitalism of post war Germany by pushing architecture further toward an industrial glass, steel and marble aesthetic. However, instead of Behrens’ monumentality, as in the 1909 AEG factory, Mies and Lily raised the building of Barcelona Pavilion to the level of art resonating Spirituality and tranquility.

The pavilion can be approached from both sides, the sloping garden and the magic fountain. If you enter from the stairs in the sloping garden, a square of sand welcomes you before stepping onto the travertine floor of the pavilion, as if the architecture has been set back to give you time to examine the building as a whole, giving anticipation and mystery to the spatial experience incoming. If you come from the side of the magic fountain, you see the whole pavilion elevated up at eye level on a travertine podium, giving the architecture a sense of superiority and spirituality.

Mies’s application of Semper’s four elements of architecture is visible here in the Barcelona Pavilion. The “fire” of the building is located in the centre of the whole site, functioning as a central source of power and lighting. Surrounded by 2 pieces of milk glass, 1 piece of black glass, and a marble panel wall, the light well provides sufficient natural light during daytime, as well as artificial lighting at night. Raised up from the city fabric, the whole pavilion was based on a high podium covered by travertine squares of about 1-meter-tall, which I believe both masonry and concrete was involved in the making technique. The high “base” adds on a solid corporeality to the glass pavilion atop, standing solidly on the ground with a similar impact compares with the Greek temple. Mies took inspiration from the classical architecture of Greek temple again when it comes to the trabeated system of a regular grid of cruciform steel columns and a thin, flat concrete roof. Where I see the most impressive visual potential of new technology is the slender looking yet load-bearing steel columns which satisfy both the decorative and functional usage. The contradiction gives a strong visual power to the overall spatial experience in the pavilion. The fact that the bearing structure is independent of the walls allows the enclosure of different materials to be more flexible and satisfying the rigour of their geometry. Thanks to this fact, Mies achieved not only the appearance, as Gropius did for the Fagus factory, but the empirical fact of a continuous, hanging glass curtain wall. While the cantilevering roof strengthens the fact by casting shadows on the glass panels, deepening the visual power of tension. The continuity of inside and outside is also one of the main spatial theses of the Pavilion achieved by this glass curtain wall. Apart from the free standing glass, the stone walls, hanging from a metal frame inside the wall, is structurally independent and can be disassembled and recycled once the exposition ended. This technology made it possible for Mies and Lily to create a piece of art that has visual and spiritual qualities with pure and complete marble surfaces. Surrounded by the famous Barcelona Chairs, the precisely excavated and cut onyx panel resides in the centre of the glass and marble enclosure, being a strong statement for its state identity. The Barcelona Chairs, designed specifically for the Pavilion, require advanced technology of metal bending and chrome plating.

Mies has proved what he said “industry and technology will join with the forces of thought and culture” in a period of transition from quantity towards quality in the post war 20th century, by presenting the world the Barcelona Pavilion.

Reference

Your body is the vessel by which you experience the world and the Universe, and it allows you to be part of the cosmic flow.

You are part of the Universe.