Architectural Analysis Project, Spring Semester 1995
for Asst. Professor Janine Debanne
Pencil and colored pencil

The German Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona World’s Fair was designed in an austere, yet rich and sublime, style by Mies van der Rohe. It is commonly known as “The Barcelona Pavilion.” Although it was built as a temporary structure, it was rebuilt on the same site in 1986.

The form of the building utilized classical proportions, not dissimilar to ones in a classical temple. The modern, interlocking rectangular planes within the proportioned framework create an open, flowing space.

The pavilion stands on a large white travertine podium alongside two pools. Eight steel posts, cruciform (cross-shaped) with chrome plating, hold a thin flat roof above. Between the posts are various non-bearing curtain walls of glass and marble partitions. The partitions are of green Tinian marble and rust-colored onyx. The front pool has large white pebbles within, while the back pool has a floor covered with glass, providing increased reflection.

The central feature of the pavilion is a statue of a nude female by Georg Kolbe, entitled “Morning.” This inclusion bridged the cool technical precision of the structure to the organic warmth of the human body. The human figure was ultimately also a progenitor of the proportions that permeate the design. So the architectural analysis presented here depicts both details within the building and the purity of the human form.