Archiving the Barcelona Pavilion and the Cumulative Tale
Architecture as Archive and Archive as Architecture
The notion of archival research is important to architectural design because the material serves as a form of memory that is significant to the history of the work and provides additional knowledge. This is especially significant if the building in question is no longer in existence, in which case, the archival material becomes the trace from which the work can be studied and if required, reconstructed. The notion of architecture as archive highlights the archival qualities in a building while an architectural archive concerns material directly related to and/or associated with the work of architecture and does not necessarily allude to a built form. The primary interest in this instance arises from the unusual trajectory of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s 1929 Barcelona Pavilion as a temporary exhibition space which existed for six months, to its position as ‘one of the paradigm buildings of twentieth-century architecture’. Despite modest press coverage during its existence it was ‘raised to the status of masterpiece – mostly by critics who had never seen it’ more than a quarter of a century after being dismantled. Hence until the 1986 reconstruction on a different site, the Pavilion was essentially a series of photographs, drawings, sketches and correspondences associated with its commission, design and construction.
Aerial view of the 1928-1929 Barcelona International Exposition This image captures the central zone of the Exposition. The Pavilion appears at the bottom edge of the right corner flanked by the row of sandstone columns. The corresponding numbers in the image refer to: 1. The Barcelona Pavilion; 2. The initial site set aside for the Barcelona Pavilion; 3. The French Pavilion; 4. The location set aside for the remaining national pavilions. The highlighted areas and numbering in the image are the author’s intervention. (Additional reference: Institut Municipal d’Historia, Barcelona)
The 1986 reconstruction team further established that a set of documentation from the 1929 project which could verify the design and construction of an absolute building in a definitive state did not exist as adjustments and changes to the building were made at the last moment, many of which were not documented. Yet because this body of information is not as readily available, especially to the general public and/or wider audience situated beyond the architecture community and academic circles, this visual reconstruction, fixed in its usage and appearance is generally assumed to be a faithful reproduction that is representative of the original.
This notion of visibility, or availability of material rather extends to Juan Pablo Bonta’s publication Architecture and Its Interpretation (1979) that provides a chronological, interpretative analysis of the Pavilion through the examination of texts. This revealed that in many instances opinions of the Pavilion were the consequence of assumptions, personal conjectures, and inaccurate deductions by journalists, critics and historians.
It is the role of archival and design research to challenge established theories and test their legitimacy. Hence constructing the Pavilion’s archive through aspects of a cumulative tale manifests the fragmented qualities of existing material and more importantly, endeavours to acknowledge traces of use and history through the presence of historical, human and/or climatic interventions. Hence in the arguments concerning ‘Suppression and Concealment and/or Representation and Visibility’, the usually latent readings evaluate the appropriateness of some existing positions and especially the 1986 reconstruction as invariable.
Authorship and Presentation of the Subject Matter
The issue of authorship in this analysis contests the straightforward argument that the Pavilion is attributed to an architect and/or a singular source, in this instance Mies. This not only overlooks the fact that architecture is made by many people, the working process is often ambiguous and the meaning of authorship changes at different stages of the project. This begins with understanding that there are essentially three Pavilions. ‘The first is the 1929 pavilion, which due to financial and technical difficulties did not always conform to Mies' design. The second is the pavilion in the 1929 photographs, which represents an ideal image of Mies' design, and brought the pavilion fame. The third, the 1986 pavilion, is a reconstruction of the 1929 photographs as much as the 1929 building’. Given that it is not unreasonable to suggest that even the 1929 building cannot be solely attributed to Mies due to the manner in which it was modified as a result of necessity, and not according to his design intentions, the idea of a single claim to authorship for any of the Pavilions is highly questionable.
The dissemination of knowledge however concerns two histories. The layered readings and intellectual understandings that are nuanced and complex remains very much the purview of the privileged architecture community and especially academia, who understand and appreciate the importance of the fragmented past and diverse, dispersed material sources. While the non-research inclined wider audience is presented with the heavily edited linear trajectory of the Pavilion, transposed from the Exposition to the current construct.
This biased imbalance is embedded in another common assumption that regards a work of architecture as a stable built-form and/or an enclosure, an understanding that eclipses most other means of descriptions. In this instance, this seems to be the outcome of a carefully considered design decision as the 1986 team clearly explained that their focus was not to raise anew a building following exactly the same technical condition of the 1929 Pavilion, but with a view to guaranteeing its permanence.
Given the vast, ambiguous and contradicting sources of information regarding the Pavilion, it is only fitting that the notions of authorship and multiple interpretations are extended to the users of the archive. Hence additional innovative ways to construct and present the material for assimilation are required to address the fact that the structure of this architectural archive needs to be more open, diverse and inclusive.
Front view of the 1986 reconstructed Barcelona Pavilion (Photograph by the author)
Open Interpretations and Cumulative Tales
Umberto Eco’s The Open Work (1989) explores the capacity for user intervention to shape the reading of the work. In this instance, the architectural archive must empower the user to assume authorship and shape the reading and outcome of the material. A cumulative tale is constructed to invite audience participation and this inclusiveness has ensured its longevity and the fact that it can be found in almost all cultures. Traditionally the basic formula of the narrative adopts ‘a readily discernible pattern of repetition, of accumulating characters, objects, actions, that are repeated with each new addition of character, object or action’. The assembling process may follow a particular chronology, a method of introducing the characters, activities and occurrences of objects. This repetitive pattern that takes precedence over the plot or replaces the plot, further negates the necessity that the Pavilion requires a singular, fixed or finite conclusion, that does not exist. The layered, faceted and multi-directional stance also enables authorship to be extended to the users and facilitates the archive’s capacity to be an ongoing entity that is questioning and incomplete.
Exploring the approach and structure of the cumulative tale, this discussion highlights the method's inventiveness in interpreting archival material and subsequently adds to existing interpretations of the Pavilion. Essentially, the technique of constructing a cumulative tale requires the users’ imagination to connect fragments of material through repetition. The pattern of repetition takes precedence as the process of material acquisition generates the core action and, adds breadth and depth to a basic narrative.
This notion of multiple interpretations and different readings stems from the underlying argument that ‘there is always a history of drawings, objects and buildings within and against which an architectural work can be seen’. Hence the consideration of new ways to discuss and present archival material that consequently generates critical thinking and design work is imperative. The cumulative tale analogy further addresses the notion of ‘polyphony’, which means ‘many voices’, and in design practice refers ‘to a relational activity between different actions’. This conjoined challenge is posed to both the narrator and audience, and informs aspects of working as well as thinking.
In this paper, specific traits used in the construction of cumulative tales are appropriated as a working methodology for this practice of archival research. The advantages of this method of material curation results in another narrative, re-telling and presentation of this building, resulting in an architectural archive that influences the reading and meaning the Pavilion during the time of inception, and what the work means and represents at present.
Hence careful adaptations of the all-encompassing cumulative formula to enable the inclusion of new material to generate new narratives, not only addresses debates of whether this is yet another Pavilion that Mies built and/or alluded to but can further be perceived as an interface between the archival material, Mies’ design practice, conservation and history. The resulting body of work can be dually read as the contents and/or contents page of the material. This fluidity supports the dialectical variations as to what the original Pavilion was and represents and informs architectural teaching and practice through a more engaging process of archival research.
Bibliography
Bonta, Juan Pablo, Architecture and Its Interpretation: A Study of Expressive Systems in Architecture (London: Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd., 1979).
Eco, Umberto, The Open Work, trans. by Anna Cancogni (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989). First published in Italian in 1962.
Evans, Robin, ‘Mies van der Rohe’s Paradoxical Symmetries’, AA Files, no. 19, Spring (1990), pp. 56–68.
Halliwell, James Orchard, ed., The Nursery Rhymes of England: Collected Chiefly from Oral Tradition (London: John Russell Smith, 4th edition, 1846). First published in 1844. pp. 175–178.
Hasse, Donald, ed., The Greenwood encyclopaedia of folktales and fairytales (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2007).
Hill, Jonathan, ‘Reflections on Mies’, Architects Journal, 10 May (2001), p. 53.
Joyce, Thomas, ‘Catch if you can: The Cumulative Tale’, in Davidson, Hilda Ellis, Anna Chaudhri and Derek Brewer, A Companion to the Fairy Tale (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 123–136.
Manolopoulou, Yeoryia, Architectures of Chance (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2013).
Opie, Iona and Peter Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press: Claredon, 1951), pp. 229–32.
Sola Morales, Ignasi de, Cristian Circi and Fernando Ramos, Mies van der Rohe: Barcelona Pavilion (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 1993).
Constance Lau is an architect and teaches architecture from undergraduate to doctorate level, in London and Singapore. Her design studio’s research interests in multiple interpretations and narratives are explored through the techniques of montage as well as notions of allegory. Narrative as an ongoing dialogue in architectural design is further articulated through projects in the book Dialogical Designs (2016).
