The German Pavilion erected at the World Exhibition in Barcelona in 1929 was an imposing structure and a prime example of modern architecture. In this book, the author takes a lively and unconventional approach to the building, interpreting the various architectural, historical and cultural aspects surrounding the construction. He examines the physical elements such as the columns, the terrace, the free-standing walls which enclose the pavilion and form a pattern of open and closed spaces. He also considers the aesthetic elements, the noble materials used, its representative qualities and reflecting on how material, structure, space and tradition are integrated into a unity.
Text and project by Josep Quetglas
Prologues by Rafael Moneo
Edition and epilogue by Gillermo Zuaznabar
Drawings by Margarita Díez, Toni Sánchez, Ricardo Daza and Gillermo Zuaznabar
"I read again, with interest and pleasure, José Quetglas's text on the German Pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona fair, a work that consecrated the figure of the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe […] The flashes of lucidity that in a Text like this illuminate the complex scene, they are not intended to convince the reader of a certain thesis, on the contrary, they compromise it with the text and force it to read calmly, finding throughout it moments of lucidity that will make you feel close to what was the drama of Mies. A drama that may not have been resolved even when crossing the Atlantic. Reading the text of Quetglas, and aware of the mentioned flashes, one appreciates this way of seeing the new role of the critic ", Rafael Moneo writes in the new prologue to The crystallized horror of Josep Quetglas, made especially for this fourth edition, revised and expanded, which has been in charge of the eminent professor, curator and researcher Gillermo Zuaznabar.
"Its shape has not stopped collecting and firing, since then, reflections from different sources. How far?" Josep Quetglas asked himself in the salutation that he wrote to present this book more than thirty years ago, referring to its successive elaborations, first as a conference and then as an article until it crystallized in the final text. Definitive? Since then, these pages have not ceased to reflect the gaze with which both readers and the author himself approach him, perhaps as an echo of the ambiguous and elusive nature of the pavilion itself.
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