ABSTRACT
Mes van der Rohe’s German Pavlon at the Barcelona Un-versal Exposton of 1929, known smply as the Barcelona Pavlon, was desgned and bult some twenty years before hs Farnsworth House (see pages 61-80). Though the Farnsworth House has been dentfied as a sgnficant work of archtecture n the twenteth century, the Barcelona Pavlon s even more so; t s one of the semnal works of all tme; ts power and nfluence has grown rather
The pavlon’s broad context – n Europe mdway between the two World Wars n whch Germany was a prncpal protagonst – was nfintely more charged poltcally than that of the later Farnsworth House bult n the peaceful sylvan landscape of rural Illnos. As a contrbuton to an nternatonal exposton, set n juxtaposton to pavlons of other countres, the Barcelona Pavlon was ntended as a symbol for a naton that had renvented tself – as what s hstor-
T W E N T Y B U I L D I N G S e v e r y a r c h i t e c t s h o u l d u n d e r s t a n d
upheaval of the Frst World War. These challenges and condtons, perhaps asssted by the short tme n whch the project had to be desgned and completed, stmulated Mes to produce one of the most startlng works of archtecture n hstory.
