Every building tells a story. Yet, only a few stories earn the right to posterity. When many stories emerge, history becomes contested.
The German Pavilion designed by Mies van der Rohe for the Barcelona International Exposition in 1929 is an example of this phenomenon. The turmoil from design to its dismantlement became a contested narrative by many scholars of the field. Then, one day, the canon took the unexpected turn: they carried out the reconstruction of the pavilion in 1986, causing a controversy in the architectural milieu. Therefore it happened: “Behold, the official resurrection of the Modern Movement!”
Some hailed its remarkable interpretation, while others bemoaned the destruction of the photographic aura from architectural history. Since then, there is dispute among scholars with regard to the reincarnated yet highly ambiguous structure of the Modern Movement.
A new era is reproduced.
Mythology tends to thrive in the liquid culture of the diffused image, where architecture is duplicable and facts are blurred with fiction.
This film is inspired by the multiplicity of readings – including my own. First, they were translated into a sequence of moving images. Then, these moving images were deployed in the film by a process of delirious associations. Subsequently, they became strategic variables within a chronological timeline, thus activating a dialogue with history. In short, the cinematic framework reiterates a contemporary interpretation of the structure, nowadays called the “Barcelona Pavilion”.
Confronted with a labyrinthine ad nauseam case, i.e. the ever expanding viewpoints and conflicting interpretations manifested by scholars, I felt that there was still an untold story. A story that is not described anywhere; let alone the pamphlet that is at your disposal when you enter the roofed space of the pavilion.
This story may well be the antidote I was looking for. It seems to be hiding behind the holes of the travertine stone walls. And if you are attentive enough, it may secretly whisper to you. Or is it just the wind tunnel effect? I am drawn to auscultate this unheard voice and listen to this inner sound, for there laid the infra-story yet to be unraveled.
In the end, the film formulates a fictional narrative where truth, artifice and memory are all intertwined, suggestive of the way in which reality and fiction are shaping our experience of contemporary art, life, architecture, and after all, history.
