An architectural masterpiece built on vaults: Mies & Reich’s Barcelona Pavilion

The German Pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona Exhibition, a benchmark of 20th-century rationalist architecture designed by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, was built on a plinth made up of seventy tile vaults. This decision, proposed by Joan Bergós, a former disciple of Gaudí’s and, at that time, the site manager for the construction company in charge, was approved due to time constraints and implemented without the knowledge of its two designers. This article analyses the details of this unique episode in the history of the building, as viewed in the context of the tradition of this construction technique in Barcelona in the past, and its use in local Art Nouveau, Noucentista and rationalist architecture. With the aid of previously unpublished data, drawings, and photographs the text sheds light on the construction. The authors also recover the first, now-forgotten attempt from 1970 to reconstruct the German Pavilion by architects Buenaventura Bassegoda Musté and Juan Bassegoda Nonell. At the time Joan Bergós acted as chief advisor, and for the sake of historical accuracy, also contemplated reproducing the plinth with its original tile vaults.