Barcelona Pavilion - Architecture and Technology
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion seems to feature ideas ranging from the distant past like classicism, to more recent ones, such as Industrial Neoclassicism.
Classicism is the style of the ancients, or the ancient Greeks and Romans, of which the Greek temple or the temple in general is considered the paradigm. Industrial Neoclassicism is a term coined by Peter Behrens to describe reduced and abstracted architecture, that became increasingly popular during the 19th and 20th centuries. Mies seems to have shared a passion for exploring how Industrial Neoclassicism could manifest itself better in modern buildings, a venture that Behrens, whom he worked with, had taken interest in himself.
The combination of glass, steel and stone create dramatic contrasts and comparisons between the materials and the structures they create. The glass creates a sense of seamlessness while the stone seems to assert dominance. While glass and steel have been used extensively to ornament the building, the stone and marble seem to have been used to highlight construction than to ornament. Some materials of the pavilion, mostly stone or marble, feature sunny yellows and dark greys for contrast as if to represent light with yellows and darkness with greys.
Mies has merged transparency and opacity in the pavilion, into a certain aesthetic where the two seemingly co-exist. Walls that provide enclosure as well as transparency feature glass whereas walls that provide enclosure and create a certain barrier from the rest of the building, feature stone and marble to give the opacity needed. The glass wall that stands before the pool could be a continuation or an extension of Behrens’s “curtain wall” that he used on the front of the AEG Factory.
The pool adds a profound effect to the building, as the fluidity of the building seems to be held in comparison to the water in the pool. The statue in the corner of the pool could act as a reminder of classicism or classical architecture, as it bears great resemblance to Greek or Renaissance sculptures (the Greco-Roman arts were revived during the Renaissance). The sand-coloured stone on the ground floor is reminiscent of that of a classical temple, and this could be a feature that Mies wanted to incorporate into his pavilion so as to give it the appearance and the feel of a Greek temple.
It is a general expectation for architecture to have stone in order to be considered complete or even “fully fledged”. Glass and steel structures, like the Crystal Palace did not quite fall into the category of architecture, although now, this style of construction is quite common. Mies appears to have been conflicted in his design of the Barcelona Pavilion as he has used both stone and glass, and steel to hold the glass in place and as structural components. The use of standardised materials is quite evident here, an idea brought to life by Paxton which might have been solidified by Mies’s time. Sigfried Giedion was of the idea that technology created a sense of incompleteness when applied to architecture; however, Mies’s use of technology in the Barcelona Pavilion along with the presence of stone opposes Giedion’s statement.
Giedion seems to have favoured conventional forms of architecture like buildings constructed in the classical style, but Mies decided to adapt to modern requirements and tastes while still integrating classical concepts into the Barcelona Pavilion. This is an example for Mies’s statement “industry and technology will join with the forces of thought and culture”. Mies’s decision to not completely resort to using stone could have been to signify the period of transition that he speaks of (“We are in a period of transition”) in his passage exhibitions and technology written in 1928.
By creating a structure where stone and revolutionary and “modern” materials like glass and steel exist in harmony, Mies is finding a common ground as to where both the classical and modern can exist, while giving his structure the weight it needs to be considered a legitimate form of architecture.
