Columns and Walls of Mies Van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion Essay

Points and Lines

The construction of the German Pavilion for the 1929 Exhibition was conceived from Mies’s original concept of building with innovative and radical ideas. Mies gave considerable importance to the freeing of the walls from their original function of supporting load. The walls define the spaces.

Wall continuity and support are provided by separate U-shaped metal elements. The slabs which covered the wall surfaces and the stones were used as a cladding material, and its purpose was for easy dismantling as Mies and his team were aware that the pavilion was only for exhibition purposes. Cladded walls create reflection but also virtual space. Mies used rigid vertical elements, sometimes of substantial depth in section, using standardized fixing. Making this as a framework, we view a series of points and lines, elements that comprise the walls, doors and windows.¹ These expand the limited space of the pavilion.

The materials created the reflections, the highpoints, the excellence and the advanced thinking of Mies van der Rohe in providing the form.² The water, glass and marble generated the form and character of the structure – the columns for support and the marble, pools, and mirror to provide more reflections.³ The theme of nothingness becomes apparent as it is reflected in the walls and pools⁴. Without doors and roof and seemingly no walls – the walls are transparent and only act as temporary limiter of space – the pavilion is, according to Nicolau M. Rubió, an enclosed space, “contained by geometry,”⁵ which is different from containment of physical relationships, and it is containment by a geometry of “evocations, of perceptions, of references,” and a common feature of Mies’s architecture.⁶

Mies used reflective covering in the pillars to expand his concept of creating space even in the presence of pillars. Pillars should help provide space by being withdrawn, as in the case of buildings with pillars confined in corners. He rejected vertical lines in many of his projects, particularly buildings. In the pavilion, the flagpoles are visible but placed in a succession where one is smaller than the last. Vertical planes are drawn the last, once all the horizontal planes have been set because in the latter the architectural stage is based.⁷

Additionally, pillars are covered with chrome metal to make reflections. In an article that focused on the emptiness of the pavilion, Rubio provided a floor plan disregarding the pillars.⁸ Quetglas remarked that the floor plan was a carefully executed one which marked the doors and enclosed platform.⁹ The pillars were superfluous and just interfering with Mies’s art. But there was no need of convincing Mies about the pillars since he always applied metal covering to provide reflections. Other walls used as screens were partitions made of ebony and onyx, and because of this application they lose their defined purpose.

We defined the points and lines to create the form, but Mies had disregarded the form as he theorized that architecture for the sake of form will be focused on externalities.

Lines

Walls are lines and important elements in architecture¹⁰ and for any particular project. In the pavilion, the glassed walls provide the impression of nothingness. They appear mysterious, considering that the reflection is produced by mirrors, metals and glass. When the visitor steps behind the walls he sees the outside scene perfectly well.¹¹ As stated earlier, Mies was concerned about creating virtual space: mirrors are used to dissipate the smallness of a rectangular interior space and he used this inside the pavilion. Schinkel used this in Prince Albert’s Palace as if he extended space from limited corners to make infinite perspectives.¹²

The reflections on the glassed walls, marble, and water provide a sense of nothingness and ambiguity between the enclosed and the outside, the floor and the ceiling, underpinning the unity of the pavilion by folding the parts to each other – creating uniqueness while preventing any steady image. If you peer along the dark glassed wall that divides the sculpture court from the inside, an image of the court is created in the interior, with the pool outside doubled in the black carpet inside. You only see the statue, George Kolbe’s Alba (Dawn), which has multiple reflections in the pool and the glass panels.¹³

Stone walls are in different proportions and in various transparent colours, like bottle green mouse, grey, and milky white. The roof is supported by cruciform pillars attached to the iron beams.¹⁴ The glass walls are not only for reflection: they help in stimulating the visitor to the highest degree.

The reflections are created at different angles. When the visitor is right at the doorstep looking into the interior of the structure, the image seems reversed – he is inside but still standing outside. One question that enters the mind of the visitor is that the pavilion could not have an interior, or the interior part is the exterior one. A feeling of perplexity enters the minds of many visitors of the pavilion. The fact is the glass panes are windows that are always open outwards.¹⁵

The walls are of high-grade marble, forming the base of the translucent glass that also acts as support and divider. The weight of the walls looks like it cannot give support but the pavilion has been regarded by architects as a fluid and open space and is superior in quality to a compartmentalized space.¹⁶

The marble walls enclose the empty space but this is done geometrically, rather than in a physical manner. There are rooms that have no ceiling and enclosed only by three walls; space is limited only by geometry¹⁷. The glassed walls are used to include or exclude space; meaning Mies eliminated the contrast between outside and inside which makes the pavilion wholly public.¹⁸

Mies seems to have created allusions in the pavilion by integrating the different vehicles of reflections. Mies’s use of metal and glass to create reflection has provided a distinct architecture. His critics have remarked that Mies always incorporated radical changes in his projects. All these made the pavilion unique.

Points

The points are the columns connected together but since these are made of glass you see nothing from above but points. This same thing happens when the visitor views the pavilion from the outside. The glass, the pool and pillar covering provide the mystery, but there is no magic. The unique glass technology helps provide quality by allowing the inside and outside appear undivided.¹⁹ In the drawing, we see the points that integrate the lines, but it is different in the actual experience. Visitors have distinct experiences once inside the pavilion.

What one perceives as nothing outside is opposed to what one sees inside as the base of the pavilion has true consistence: it has a two-thick sheet of travertine inside, networked by reflections, shadows and strokes.²⁰ The glassed walls are purposely enveloping the space inside, making the interior an enclosed space.

Schinkel indicated that architects usually focus on one subject and develop it along the way, and solve whatever problem that could be encountered in the curse of building the project²¹. Mies was obsessed to build a segregated, closed space, divided only by horizontal planes, with vertical lines supporting the planes, but the walls look like mist, transparent in a sense. Famous architect-artists of the past conceived architecture not defined in relation to the ground – they provided elevated ground with a pre-existing platform but separated to the contours of the natural terrain. This principle was used in the concept of glass skyscrapers. The glassed walls are not built in a vertical piling but in a gradual piling, in successive series of horizontal planes, starting on the ground.²²

The pavilion is used to reflect the past and the mirror works well for this. This is one of Mies’s predominant emphases in the pavilion – to represent the past as Germany was recovering from the trauma of World War I²³. The pavilion has nothing inside, no art work, but the entire pavilion is the art work.

The visitor personally experiences the beauty of art inside and outside. But there are critics, saying that the pavilion was built with budget cuts and so some of Mies’s original drawings were not followed and there was cosmetic change applied. Critics also argued that the inside base could not hold the roof. Quetglas countered that this could be true but only for those whose opinion of the pavilion was negative and dull. A strong foundation was built to give support to the inside portion.²⁴ It only appears that the glassed walls support the roof, which means it is just an artistic expression where the purpose is hidden.

The columns are the “core-form” which appear in other Mies’s architectural work, particularly in buildings. On the level of construction, both the columns and the slabs of stone form part of a system²⁵. Likewise, the marble slabs are suspended from a metal substructure that holds them in place. What appears as a system or Mies’s formulaic expression is a structure versus enclosure as two juxtaposed systems²⁶. The structure seems to be limited by the containing planes of ceiling and floor.

Bibliography

Bafna, Sonit, “A Morphology of Intentions: The Historical Interpretation of Mies van der Rohe’s Residential Designs.” PhD diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2001.

Cox, Delmer. “Fractal Geometric Applications in the Design of Architectural Space.” Masters’ thesis, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1998.

Hill, Jonathan. “Reflections on Mies.” The Architect’s Journal 213, no. 1 (2001): 52-53. Web.

Ibrahim, Mohammad Arefeen. “Wall in 20^th Century Architecture: A Study of the Pattern of Change & the Ideological Factors Responsible Behind the Evolution.” Masters’ thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004.

Kim, Ransoo. “The Tectonically Defining Space of Mies van der Rohe.” History 3, no. 4 (2009): 251-260. Web.

Kleiner, Fred. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Concise Global History. Bonston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2009.

Quetglas, Joseph. “Fear of Glass: Mies Van Der Rohe’s Pavilion in Barcelona.” Barcelona: Birkhäuser-Publishers for Architecture, 2001.

Roth, Leland. Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, and Meaning. New York, NY: Icon Editions, 1993.

Rubio, Ignasi Sola-Morales, Christian Cirici and Fernando Ramos. Mies Van Der Rohe: Barcelona Pavilion. Barcelona: G. Gili, 1993.

Unwin, Simon. Twenty-Five Buildings Every Architect Should Understand: A Revised and Expanded Edition of Twenty Buildings Every Architect Should Understand. London and New York: Routledge, 2015.

Weston, Richard, and John Pardey. “Platform: Explorations of an Architectural Idea.”Architectural Research Quarterly 6, no. 2 (2002): 144-157. Accessed February 23, 2016. Web.

Zimmerman, Claire. “Modernism, Media, Abstraction: Mies van der Rohe’s Photoraphic Archictecture in Barcelona and Brno (1927-31).” PhD diss., The City University of New York, 2005.

Footnotes

1. Sonit Bafna, “A Morphology of Intentions: The Historical Interpretation of Mies van der Rohe’s Residential Designs” (PhD diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2001), 2.
2. Ignasi Sola-Morales Rubio, Christian Cirici and Fernando Ramos, Mies Van Der Rohe: Barcelona Pavilion (Barcelona: G. Gili, 1993), 9.
3. Simon Unwin, Twenty-Five Buildings Every Architect Should Understand: A Revised and Expanded Edition of Twenty Buildings Every Architect Should Understand (London and New York, Routledge, 2015), 35.
4. Jonathan Hill, “Reflections on Mies,” The Architect’s Journal 213, no. 1 (2001): 52-53, Web.
5. Leland Roth, Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, and Meaning (New York, NY: Icon Editions, 1993), 28.
6. Josep Quetglas, “Fear of Glass: Mies Van Der Rohe’s Pavilion in Barcelona,” (Birkhäuser-Publishers for Architecture, 2001), 73.
7. Ibid, 75.
8. Ibid, 76.
9. Ibid.
10. Mohammad Arefeen Ibrahim, “Wall in 20^th Century Architecture: A Study of the Pattern of Change & the Ideological Factors Responsible Behind the Evolution,” (Masers’ thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004), 19.
11. Quetglas, 65.
12. Ibid.
13. Quetglas, 21.
14. Delmer Cox, “Fractal Geometric Applications in the Design of Architectural Space” (Masters’ thesis, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1998), 71.
15. Ransoo Kim, “The Tectonically Defining Space of Mies van der Rohe,” History 3, no. 4 (2009): 251-260, Web.
16. Quetglas, 73.
17. Quetglas, 73.
18. Cox, 72.
19. Fred Kleiner, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Concise Global History (Bonston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2009), 249.
20. Quetglas, 69.
21. Ibid, 70.
22. Ibid.
23. Quetglas, 12.
24. Ibid, 82.
25. Claire Zimmerman, “Modernism, Media, Abstraction: Mies van der Rohe’s Photoraphic Archictecture in Barcelona and Brno (1927-31),” PhD diss., The City University of New York, 2005), 92.
26. Ibid, 93.