The expert contributors to this lavishly illustrated volume, devoted
entirely to Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion of 1929, address here
for the first time the forgotten contexts of the Pavilion's genesis.
Habitually thought of as an abstract, unpolluted, and splendidly
isolated building--a precursor of Mies's American period--the Pavilion
is revealed here as a thoroughly European work, perhaps less pristine
but more authentic.
Mies and Lilly Reich were commissioned to design not only the Pavilion
but also more than one hundred thousand square feet of German stands
spread throughout the Exposition. By examining that work in addition to
the Pavilion itself, the contributors present a far-reaching
reinterpretation of the whole. They also explore connections with the
mass media, highlight the work's antecedents and meaning in the history
of architecture, and analyze the current pavilion, a reconstruction of
the original built in 1986. No other critical study offers a comparable
overview of Mies's work in Barcelona.