The Mies van der Rohe Foundation in Barcelona celebrated the 90th anniversary of the opening of the Pavilion on May 27 with the reissue of the book "Mies van der Rohe, El Pabellón de Barcelona", updated with new reflections by those who reconstructed it in 1986.
Nowadays, thanks to its reconstruction, the Barcelona Pavilion can be visited in the same place for which it was designed and from the Fundació Mies van der Rohe we keep the commitment to make it known and accessible to everyone. Therefore, in addition to the many activities it hosts, open days and educational activities, we have fostered the production of studies, documentaries and publications, among which we present today, to celebrate this anniversary, the reissue of "Mies van der Rohe. Pabellón de Barcelona" by Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Cristian Cirici and Fernando Ramos, authors of the reconstruction.
 
After a few years discontinued, it is available again with new texts that provide the perspective of the current look.


DESCRIPTION

This book consists essentially of two parts: the first provides an extensive survey of the materials relating to the 1929 building and the critical responses to it. The second part sets out to present in some detail the technical treatment of the task of reconstructing the pavilion. The explanation of this process is thus the book's fundamental objective. The graphic documentation illustrating the two parts has considerable archive value in its own right, while some fifty full-colour plates reveal the reconstructed building of the present, originally designed as a modest pavilion and since elevated to the status of the paradigm of the 20th century architecture.

The authors of the book are the architects who carried out the reconstruction of the pavilion:

Ignasi de Solà-Morales, PhD in Architecture and Professor of Theory and History of Architecture at the Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona since 1978, visiting professor at various universities in Span and internationally and author of numerous books and articles of architectural history and criticism.

Cristian Cirici, graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona in 1965, founding member of Studio PER and B.D. Ediciones de Diseño, visiting professor at numerous universities around the world, and several times winner of FAD design awards.

Fernando Ramos, graduated from the Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona in 1969, PhD in Architecture and Professor of Construction at the same School and its Director in the late 80s, member of the European Commission Commission for the monitoring of the architectural profession, and associate architect with Richard Meier on the construction of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) in Barcelona.

More information

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Publisher
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Fundació Mies van der Rohe
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Author
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Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Cristian Cirici & Fernando Ramos
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Language
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Spanish/English
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Size
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30 x 29,7 x 0,8 cms
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Pages
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84
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Illustrations
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Color and B&W
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Cover
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Rústica
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Publication date
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May 2019
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ISBN
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Spanish 9788494882074. English9788494882081
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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was born in Aquisgran the 27th of Marz of 1886 and died in Chicago the 17th of August of 1969. He was active in Germany, from 1908 to 1938, when he moved to USA and where he was until his death. He was also considerate a “master” of the Modern Movement, since the 50s, and he was one of the fathers of this movement with Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Mies van der Rohe, who in his childhood was guided by masters as Hendrik Petrus Berlage or Peter Behrens, he always kept tabs of the Villlet-Le-Duc’s rationalism or Karl Friedrich Schinkel eclectic classicism, having a strong connection with the architectural historicism. As he said in his manifesto “Baukunst und Zeiwille” about this: “it is not possible to move on looking back”.

In 1900 he began to work with his father in the stone workshop of the family and shortly afterward he move to Berlin to work with Bruno Paul in 1902, designing furniture. He planned his first house in 1907, the “Riehl House” in Neubabelsbers and worked from 1908 to 1911 in Peter Behrens’s studio. There he was influenced by structural technics and designs based on steel and glass, as the AEG project in Berlin. While he was in Behrens’s studio he designed the Perls House.

In 1912 he openned his own studio and projected a house in The Hague for Kröller-Müller marriage. The studio received few jobs in its first years, but Mies, contrary to architects as Le Corbusier, in his first years he already showed an architectural policy to follow, being an architect that changed little his architectural philosophy. To his epoch belonged the Heertrasse House and Urbig House as his principal projects.

In 1913 se move to the outskirts of Berlin with his wife Ada Bruhn with whom he would have three kids. The family broke up when Mies was posted to Romania during the World War I.

In 1920, Ludwig Mies changed his surname to Mies van der Rohe and in 1922 he joined as member to the “Novembergruppe”. One year later, in 1923, he published the magazine “G” with Doesburg Lisstzky and Rechter. During this period he worked in two houses, the Birck House and the Mosler House. In 1926, Mies van der Rohe held the post of chief commissioner of the German Werkbund exhibition, being his president this year. In this period he projected the Wolf House in Guden and the Hermann Lange House in Krefeld and in 1927, he met the designer Lilly Reich, in the house exhibition of Weissenhof, where he was director, and he planned a steel structure block for her.

In 1929, he received the project the German National Pavilion to the International Exhibition of Barcelona) rebuilt in 1986=, where he included the design of the famous Barcelona Chair.

In 1930, he planned in Brün – present Czech Republic -, the Tugendhat Villa. He managed the Dessau’s Bauhaus until his closure in 1933. The Nazism forced Mies to emigrate to the United States in 1937. He was designated chair of the Architecture department in Armour Institute in 1938, the one that later merged with the Lewis Institute, forming the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and where he took the responsibility to build a considerable extent of the foundations of the Intitute from 1939 and 1958. One of the buildings of this complex is the Crown Hall, IIT (1950-1956).

In 1940, he met the person who would be his partner until his death, Lora Marx. He became citizen of the USA in 1944 and, one year later, he began with the Farnsworth House’s project (1945-1950). During this stage, in 1948, he designed his first skyscraper: the two towers of the Lake Drive Apartments in Chicago, which were finished in 1951. Shortly after, he planned other building of this typology, the Commonwealth Promenade Apartments, from 1953 to 1956.

In 1958 he projected his most important work: the Segram Building in New York. This building has 37 storeys, covered with glass and bronze, which built and planned with Philip Johnson. He retired from the Illinois Institute of Technology the same year. He also built more towers and complexes as: the Toronto Dominion Centre (1963-1969) and the Westmount Square (1965-1968) and designed the New Square and Office Tower of The City of London (1967).

From 1962 to 1968, he built the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, which would be his last legacy to the architecture. The building that rose as exhibition hall is made of steel, glass and granite.

He died in Chicago the 17th of August if 1969 leaving behind a large legacy and influence to next generations.

The Mies van der Rohe’s most famous sentences are “Less is more” and “God is in the details”.
 

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