The pavilion may occasionally be closed to the public. The original 1929 pavilion building, despite its enormous influence on the emerging international style of architecture, was demolished the year after the international exhibition when nobody wanted to buy it from the german government. His designs were much less rigid than le corbusiers, and they allowed for much more flexibility and multifunctionality. Beginning and ending in berlin, from the pre1914 houses for the intelligentsia to the final masterpiece of 1968, the neue nationalgalerie, this essay records the stages of a distinguished career from the bauhaus to chicago, detroit, montreal and to new york, with the famous seagram. Two of his major projectsthe pavilion built at the world exhibition in barcelona in 1929 and the haus tugendhat in brno, czech republic, completed one year laterbecame icons of.
Barcelona pavilion transformed into grid of lasers by. When barcelona town council first decided to reconstruct the pavilion a foundation was set up to do this. Bbc culture why the barcelona pavilion is a modernist. Free admission to 25 attractions, including pedralbes monastery. Dubbed geometry of light, the installation was designed to highlight the. German pavilion at the 1929 international exhibition av. Its architecture is pure poetry, simple honest planes of stone with slim, graceful polished steel cruciform columns. Books alphabetically by title anatomy of architectural interpretations.
We do not believe in the time that comes after all this is over. Each barcelona piece is a tribute to the marriage of modern design and exceptional craftsmanship. Canadian studio mackaylyons sweetapple architects used concrete, glass and wood to form an austere pool house in southern. Geometry of light, barcelona pavilion and farnsworth house. Florence has always credited mies as her most influential instructor and, in 1948, mies granted knoll exclusive rights to produce his furniture, including the barcelona collection, the brno chair, and mr series. In fact, its a reconstructed building of the one that was produced in 1929.
Barcelona pavilion is known for its simple form and. Those books held within the aa library are indicated with a shelfmark. The barcelona pavilion, an emblematic work of the modern movement, has been exhaustively studied and interpreted as well as having inspired the oeuvre of several generations of architects. Yes, it takes the barcelona pavilion as its object of study, but it puts more effort into challenging the various myths surrounding the building as. The pavilion was to house manufactured german products, to promote german design, engineering and technology, in the same way trade fairs do today. He described his buildings as skin and bones architecture, which is. Among other things, his pavilion served as the setting for the inaugural ceremony led by the spanish royal couple, alfonso xiii and victoria eugenia. This german architect was one of the main figures of modern architecture and the creator of the barcelona. Among these, the barcelona chair, originally created for the german pavilion of 1929, is still in production by knoll, who bought rights to the design in 1953.
Offered the commission in 1928, mies created a masterpiece in short order. It is hard to differentiate between the two because the reconstruction is very similar to the original one. It was conceived to accommodate the official reception presided over by king alfonso xiii with the german authorities. This building was used for the official opening of the german section of the exhibition. The foundation still exists today and is a nonprofit organisation promoting modern architecture. The barcelona pavilion has been exhaustively studied and interpreted as well as having inspired the oeuvre of several generations of architects. It exemplified his ideal of universal, simplified architecture that employed modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define elegant spaces.