FEAR OF COLUMNS
2016
Barcelona. Spain
"Lo que caracterizaba la pintura de Mondrian desde 1920 habÃa sido la consideración indiferente del lÃmite, lo ocasional del marco, la dudosa detención de la imagen al llegar al borde, la indefinición del cuadro..."
J. Quetglas, El Horror Cristalizado.
The International Fair of 1929 in Barcelona was the first I.F. to host pavilions for individual contries, other than the main halls. It is a well known story how the German Government comissioned its own pavilion to Mies van der Rohe. What its not so well known is that Mies changed the proposed site from the Spanish Goverment and chosed a peripheric area of the Fair, outside its boundaries which were represented by 8 ionic columns and 2 ionic pedestals.
Soon after the International Fair the pavilion was torn down. However a group of architects decided to rebuild it as identic as the original with the poor technical plans that existed.
In light of the 30th anniversary of the pavilion reconstruction the Mies van der Rohe Foundation called for a competition which purpose was to temporarily recreate the columns and pedestals that presidied over the pavilion.
The proposal is not a recreation of the columns as single elements but a reconstruction of their relation to the pavilion - a threshold-. This abstraction of the 10 elements draws a new enclosure for the pavilion. They stand exactly where the ionic elements were as a reminder of what and where, therefore with a strong informative will.
Whereas its position creates a renewed enclosure, its the materiality -mirror- what brings the current context into the limit. The dynamic image changes as the visitor moves and enchances self-awarness as well as context awarness. As we understand it, an edgde has to be porous in order to function as a threshold.
w/ Ferran Iglesias.