a building fit for a king.

what: the Barcelona Pavilion
by: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
year: 1929
why: Built as the German national pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition. The Pavilion was conceived to accommodate the official reception presided over by King Alphonso XIII of Spain along with the German authorities.
with: Built from glass, travertine and different kinds of marble
history: After the closure of the Exhibition, the Pavilion was disassembled in 1930. In 1980 Oriol Bohigas headed up the design and supervise the reconstruction of the Pavilion. Work began in 1983 and the new building was opened on its original site in 1986.


okay so I just want to quickly write a little about the spaces created within the walls of the Barcelona Pavilion.

To begin, I truly appreciate the space but at the same time the space also confuses me. Before, during, and after the teachers discussion and description there was so much to look at because of all the precision taken within the placement of each architectural element. So because of all of the elements that there is to look at I am just going to focus on what I like best: the pools of water.

When approaching the first pool of water one approaches it from an oblique angle. The far left corner of the pool is surrounded by a wall that wraps around the corner. This wall helps to create several edges all at one time. 1_ The surface to sky horizon, for all of the walls in the entire pavilion are the same height and it is a height that corresponds the the heavy bottom base of the Palace walls. 2_It helps to create the visual plane at where the 'area' of the pavilion ends. 3_Also the water ends right at the base of the walls and then they begin to extend upwards. Where the two walls and the water meet I believe to be one of the most powerful edges- but yet an edge not accessible to the public.

The other pool of water is surrounded by four walls 3 walls of marble that butt up against the pool and then the 4th is in glass and it is set back enough for a walkway (between the pavilion and the water, outside). This pool is much smaller and is even more simple than the other. There is no texture to the bottom of the pool but the marble and then the statue standing alone at the one end of the pool. This space to me is very small and quite cramped but I believe that that is the way it is supposed to be. This pool then ends the pavilion on the opposite end- opposite the other pool. In way the rectangular space becomes defined by the walls and the pools. For without them the horizon line off the marble would be endless... there was an idea behind keeping the viewer contained.

There is soooo much more to tell about this building that I could go on for hours, but I feel that the way the architect contains the viewer and the ideas to just one surface at just one height between two defining walls is the most important feature.