LESS IS LESS
For anyone with any interest in architecture, visiting Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, when in the city, is an obligation. One finds there, in a faithful reproduction of the original 1929 structure, what one expects: the travertine slab floor, the serene reflecting pools, the dramatically cantilevering roof, the floor-to ceiling window panes, the floating marble partition, the precious cruciform columns, and, presiding over it all, the life-size female statue in the back corner, who, with twisted torso and outstretched arms, seems to be practicing an arty minimalist dance.
But the experience of the building is thin. The first time I visited, two summers ago, the sun blasted the interior, giving the space a dreamy organic glow. I wandered through, dazzled, and walked away, satisfied that I had encountered a building I’d known before, for decades, only through textbooks. The second time I visited, this winter, the clouds hung low and gave the interior a cool blue cast. The travertine floor, I saw, was streaked with years of grime. The leather chair cushions were dull. The richly veined sepia marble and bright red velvet curtains seemed, in combination, gauche. And the chrome column covers, with a fattened profile and exposed flathead screws along each side, were clumsily executed.
My friend, an architect, remarked, “This is a building that travels best in black and white photographs.” Photography draws out the long perspectival lines of the walls and the roof, flattening them into elegant lines, wiry starburst compositions that Mies studied meticulously in collages before construction. Photographs take the weight out of the materials, softening the figuring in the stone, dematerializing the low plaster ceiling, and rendering the glass invisible. It brushes away the dull physicality of the building, and also the heavy-handedness of the design.
The Pavilion was designed as a space to receive the King and Queen of Spain during the 1929 Exposition. It’s less a proper building than a dressed-up shed, and its main spaces have no lights, electricity, security, plumbing and weatherproofing. This program frees the design, so the plan can resolve itself with mathematical precision, like a difficult proof solved by a very clever student. The Pavilion’s open plan falls easily into abstraction. And the building itself is pretty in an immediate, uncomplicated way. It’s forms are reduced, purged of historical references, which is how it became an icon of High Modernism. But for someone deeply interested in design and construction, the Pavilion remains just that, a magnificent symbol. All of its less leaves one wanting more of what one finds in buildings one loves: ornament and grit, tension and complexity.