Fundació Mies van der Rohe 2022 program of activities

The 17th edition of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award, the Lilly Reich Grant for equality in architecture and the interventions in the Pavilion stand out.

On January 27 in Barcelona, the Fundació Mies van der Rohe presented its program of activities for the year 2022, which will be one of the most international and varied to date and which confirms it as a cultural protagonist in the dissemination of architecture, art, music, dance or cinema. The Pavilion becomes a meeting space to design future ways of living combining culture, nature, social inclusion and research.

EU Mies Award

On May 12, the EU Mies Award will bring to Barcelona the most current voices and debates in contemporary architecture. The role of architecture in achieving equity and democracy through the inclusion and acceptance of diversity will be the most prominent aspect of the conversations between the authors and clients of the winning and finalist works, the renowned members of the jury and political representatives as the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, of the European Commission, Ms Mariya Gabriel, also responsible for the Horizon Europe and Creative Europe programmes. This great celebration, open to everyone, will also allow visitors to go deeper into the 40 works selected from among 532 nominees in an itinerant exhibition that will begin its tour in Barcelona and participate in the awards ceremony – with surprises included – on the esplanade of the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion. This 2022, the exhibition will travel to Cologne, Brussels and Vienna. The EU Mies Award will also be presented to other European cities such as Belgrade in the context of the BINA Festival, Belgrade International Architecture Week, and cities from other continents such as Montevideo or Shanghai.

At the end of the year, the Young Talent Architecture Award 2023 will begin, which will bring together architecture schools, young architects and the most outstanding proposals on how to face the challenges of the moment and the future. This year’s edition is special due to the involvement of the Fundació Mies van der Rohe in the activities of the European Year of Youth.

Additionally, the material from the EU Mies Award Archive have made possible four exhibitions, in four different venues: “Transformation strategies: architecture that cares” at the Lithuanian Pavilion of Expo 2020 Dubai, “EU Mies Award in Poland” at the Warsaw Zodiak, “YTAA 2020” at the University of A Coruña and “Large-scale transformation, a new sustainability challenge. Kleinburg in Amsterdam, Grand Parc in Bordeaux” on collective housing in Le Pavillon de Caen. This last exhibition will travel during the first semester to Madrid in the context of the International Forum of the International Union of Architects – ‘Affordable Housing Activation’.

Lilly Reich Grant

The results of the winning research works of the second edition of the Lilly Reich Grant will be presented on March 8 with a preview of the documentary “[On Set with] Lilly Reich” by Laura Lizondo Sevilla, Débora Domingo Calabuig and Avelina Prat García that later it will be presented in its entirety as a collateral event of the Barcelona International Architecture Film Festival – BARQ 2022 (May 10 to 15) and the presentation of the works of the three winners of the High School Research Works category. Coinciding on June 16 with the 137th anniversary of the birth of the German architect, the third edition of the grant will be launched, whose winning proposals will be made public on World Architecture Day, the first Monday in October.

Interventions

The Pavilion will invite architects, sculptors, designers, musicians and other artists to discuss and think about the challenges that must be answered globally. The naturalization of the pond stands out with the introduction of the aquatic plants that the Pavilion originally had in 1929, providing a change of image to one of the most appreciated works of architecture of the city worldwide: “Water Lilies” (Central, Warsaw) . It will also highlight the dynamism and vitality that the interventions “Psicoarquitectura” (Óscar Abraham Pabón, Caracas-Barcelona), “Mass Madera” (Vicente Guallart and Daniel Ibáñez, New York-Barcelona), “The Grid” (Eugenia López Reus & Miguel Jaime, CritTeam, Barcelona) and “The Mineral Model” (Ciro Najle, Josep Ferrando and Anna Font, Buenos Aires-Barcelona), which will delve into the materiality of the Pavilion and the impact of the creative and construction industries.

Music, cinema, dance and reading

Music, cinema, dance and literature bring us closer to enjoying with all our senses with Pavelló de música, Pantalla Pavelló and Pavelló de Lectura.

Architecture and music have historically been linked, feeding back their creative processes and providing themselves with new compositional elements. The acoustic of the space is essential for the communication and collaboration with Barcelona Obertura and the Fundación Goethe that will allow, from different interpretations, to appreciate the space of the Pavilion.

The cinema has been essential in the way of viewing and interpreting the architectural and urban space and reflecting on the inhabited environment. This interest in the seventh art is underlined by the Fundació’s promotion at the International Architecture Film Festival – BARQ (May 10-15), the proposals for the programming of the “Per Amor a les Arts” cycle at the Filmoteca de Catalunya and in the summer, Pantalla Pavelló, which this year will take us into the lives of architects and architectures.

Sant Jordi is the opportunity to enjoy reading in this unique site of Montjuïc and Barcelona. The select selection of titles in the Pavilion bookstore and its ever-changing spaces are the ideal place to spend International Book Day. During this weekend of April 23 – 24, in addition to books, dance will also invade the Pavilion with “Desire de paragüas” by the Van Holzer company, a journey across the Pavilion through movement.

During the year, three new publications will be presented related to interventions that allow continuing reflection through contributions from critics and photographers. “It begins with one word” by Katarzyna Krakowiak and Marcin Sczcelina, “Beautiful Failures” by Stella Rahola and Roger Paez (with Elisava) and “L’estadi, el pavelló i el palau” by Dòmenec (with MACBA), will be added to the collection of the catalogue of Interventions at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion.

Divulgation

The digital communication formats that were implemented during the pandemic have proven to be an extremely useful tool for the participation of a broader and more diverse audience and will be incorporated in complementing their face-to-face experiences. In this mixed adventure, the new audio guide stands out to get to know the Pavilion in a totally new and experiential way, together with the new didactic units for schools, which are added to the Fundació’s educational program, which last year received 233 school groups.

Open day every first Sunday of the month throughout the year 2022: January 2, February 6, March 6, April 3, May 1, June 5, July 3, August 7, September 4, October 2, November 6 and December 4 in addition to the days of Santa Eulàlia, San Jordi, la Mercè and the Night of the Museums.

All the activities of 2022 can be also consulted on the Fundació’s website and social networks:

January

17.01.22: European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2022 (EU Mies Award) | Announcement of the 40 shortlisted works selected for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2022.

Until 27.02.22: “Large-Scale Transformation, a New Sustainability Challenge. Kleiburg in Amsterdam, Grand Pare in Bordeaux.” | Le Pavillon | Caen. An exhibition of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Prize on collective housing in the framework of the Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism of Caen-Normandy.

17.01 → 15.02.22: “Transformation Strategies: European Architecture as Caregiver” EXPO Dubai 2020 | Lithuania Pavilion I Exhibition A new contribution from the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award presented in the Lithuanian Pavilion at Expo 2020.

February

16.02.22: EU Mies Award 2022 | Announcement of the 5 finalists works in the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2022.

20.02.22: “Transformation Strategies: European Architecture as Caregiver”. Exhibition, a new contribution from the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award presented at Masdar City.

March

Presentation of the documentary “[On Set with] Lilly Reich”: Laura Lizondo Sevilla, Débora Domingo Calabuig and Avelina Prat García I Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture. Result of the winning project of the 2nd Lilly Reich Grant for Equality in Architecture. Sample of the results of the curricular research work carried out by the high school students awarded scholarships and co-tutored by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation with the aim of reversing the invisibilization in architecture, both from a historical and contemporary point of view. Centers: Santa Coloma de Farners Institute, I.E.S Floridablanca de Murcia, Gabriel Ferrater Institute of Reus.

15.03.22: Los Angeles Plays ltself I Thom Andersen I Per amor a les arts. Thom Andersen analyzes Los Angeles through the footage of him throughout history. He compares the city as it exists in real life with its on- screen portrayals to examine how L.A. and its massive community have been misrepresented over the years. Screening at the Filmoteca de Catalunya.

30.03.22: Pavelló de música. Once again, the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion joins the Barcelona Apertura program by becoming a “Music Pavilion” in collaboration with the master’s students of the Liceo Conservatory.

Presentation of the new audio guide of the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion accompanies each person’s tour of the Pavilion, indicating where to direct their attention and gaze, inviting them to live an enriching experience, not only in terms of knowledge.

“Large-Scale Transformation, a New Sustainability Challenge. Kleiburg in Amsterdam, Grand Pare in Bordeaux.” 1 Forum Internacional UIA, Affordable Housing Activation. An exhibition on the answers that architecture has given to the question of collective housing based on the winning works in the latest editions of the EU Mies Award.

April

April → December: “Water Lilies”. Different types of water lilies will be introduced into the largest pond in the Pavilion. This subtle gesture adds a final touch to the 1983 reconstruction and brings back a component that has long been overlooked by architectural history, but formed an important part of many original projects. Plants, and aquatic plants, in particular, appeared repeatedly in the work of Mies and Reich, such as at the Deutsche Bauausstellung Exhibition, the Villa Tugendhat, and in the Barcelona Pavilion itself. They were often projects conceived by his lesser-known collaborators, for example, Markéta Roderova-Müllerová, landscape designer responsible for the Villa Tugendhat project, recalling those that in the history of architecture have often been left in the shadows.

Visible in some archive photos and mentioned in reviews and press clippings of the 1929 International Exhibition, the group of aquatic plants in the Barcelona Pavilion opens up a broader research topic: the relationship between hydrobotany, architecture and history of international exhibitions.

Intervention with the support of Parcs i Jardins and Viver Tres Turons.

19.04.22: EU Mies Award 20221 Official announcement of the winning works of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2022

“lt begins with one word” | Katarzyna Krakowiak, Marcin Sczcelina. Presentation of the publication resulting from the experiment that Katarzyna Krakowiak carried out at the Pavilion during the summer of 2020. An artistic intervention that materialized in a polyphonic composition made from the words received from hundreds of people from countries around the world.

23.04.22: Pavelló de lectura, Sant Jordi. The Fundació invites you to enjoy an open day to celebrate and share culture. Visitors are invited to read in the Pavilion, enjoy its architecture, and learn about the great selection of architecture books and new arrivals in the Pavilion bookstore.

23/24.04.22: “Desire de paragüas” | Cia Vanholzer. Contemporary dance and live music show at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion by renowned choreographer Raphael Miro Holzer.

May

Granting ceremony of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2022

EU Mies Award Day. Lectures and debates. A wide range of activities related to the prize-awarding of the EU Mies Award 2022.

Opening of the EU Mies Award 2022 exhibition in Barcelona | Guided visits to the 40 shortlisted works of the EU Mies Award 2022 across Europe.

11.05 → 15.05: Screening “[On Set with] Lilly Reich” | Collateral event of BARQ Barcelona lnternational Architecture Film Festival. The BARQ Festival, dedicated to vindicating architecture films as a specific genre and deepening the relationship between architecture and the seventh art, will hold its second edition from May 10 to 15 with an extensive program that includes a selection of national and international documentary films and various parallel activities (talks, debates, workshops, conferences), including the screening of the documentary “[On Set with] Lilly Reich”, the result of the winning project of the 2nd Lilly Reich Scholarship for Equality in Architecture.

June

07.06.22: The New Bauhaus I Alysa Nahmias I Per amor a les arts

Screening at the Filmoteca de Catalunya, an account of the life and ideas of the Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy in a period of great dynamism in the world of design and architecture. From his years as a teacher at the Bauhaus in Germany to the founding of the New Bauhaus in the United States in 1937.

Mies Goes Future – Esenija Bannan – Film project and exhibitions | Mies van der Rohe House

Opening of the EU Mies Award 2022 exhibition in Cologne.

July – August – September

Pantalla Pavelló | “Architects and Architectures” | Cinema cycle 04.07.22 + 01.08.22 + 01.09.22

On this occasion, under the title “Architects and Architectures” the cycle brings us three documentaries that revolve around the figure of the architect and his work.

Opening of the EU Mies Award 2022 exhibition in Brussels.

“Beautiful Failures” | Stella Rahola, Roger Paez I Presentation of the Publication on the site-specific intervention that the students of the Master in Ephemeral Architecture and Temporary Spaces of the ELISAVA Escola Superior d’Enginyeria i Disseny de Barcelona carried out in the Pavilion Mies van der Rohe in April 2021.

“Psicoarquitectura” | Óscar Abraham Pabón I Artistic lntervention | Barcelona Gallery Weekend

The proposal addresses the constructive materiality of the Pavilion from its interpretive and psychological dimensions. The proposal is based on a relationship by the resemblance between the ink stains proposed by Hermann Rorschach and those on the surfaces of the walls that make up the Pavilion. From here, three independent brick walls are built together with mortar, on which the drawing of three new stains will be embedded. The walls become objects of interpretation, and their surfaces somatize an internal dimension that implies both the construction history of the material and its role in 20th-century architecture and urban planning. If the 1929 Pavilion symbolized the future of the modern house, “Psicoarquitectura” will offer an interpretation of the evolution of this modernity from a psychic and somatized dimension. Intervention in the framework of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend.

October

30.09 → 09.10.22: “Mass Madera” | Vicente Guallart & Daniel lbáñez. An initiative promoted by the IaaC with the support of the Laudes Foundation through the Built by Nature program, which will be part of the European Forest City 2022 events that will take place in Barcelona.

22/23.10.22: 48H Open House Barcelona – Guided Visits to the Pavilion and the Fundation.

Presentation of the publication on Domènec’s intervention “L’estadi, el pavelló i el palau” carried out in 2018 at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, within the framework of the exhibition of the MACBA “Domènec. Ni aquí ni enlloc”.

Opening of the EU Mies Award 2022 exhibition in Vienna

Viu Montjuïc. The culture park. Weekend of activities

November

“The Grid” | Eugenia López Reus & Miguel Jaime

Artistic intervention in the framework of the Loop Festival

“The Grid” is a visual project that investigates the particular and exemplary way in which the Barcelona Pavilion celebrates culture and nature. The methodology used consists of representing the building from several points of view strictly linked to the order imposed by its material construction. It is a reflective process since it pursues objectivity through subjective perception, in perfect accordance with the inspiration for the creation of the building. Unexpected events occur when the eye is rigorously (orthogonally) focused on the joints of the Barcelona Pavilion. Thus, a kind of hidden harmony orchestrates geometry and nature, favouring the rhythmic coexistence of otherwise contradictory aspects.

December

“The Mineral Model” | Ciro Najle, Josep Ferrando, Anna Font I Artistic lntervention I University Torcuato di Tella

The pervasive horizontal continuity of Miesian open space, unsteadily grounded by the diagonal offsets of the podium, subtly structured by the regular grid of flat columns, effortlessly directed by the loose distribution of partitions, and neatly ornamented by the pattern of abstract material of the marble surfaces, is radically inverted in a Pavilion that celebrates its spatial-material fullness. “The Mineral Mode” bases the organization of the Contramiesian space on the systematization of the nuances of the patterns of surface ornamentation through a series of variables that program the invasion of space by cut sheets of glass, proliferating the partitions in the multiple layers of a space-matter compound, confusing the syntactic weight of the structural grid, populating the gap between the podium and the ceiling, turning the interior into an archaic translucent labyrinth.

About the Pavilion

The German Pavilion in Barcelona was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich as the German pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition that was built on Montjuïc. This symbolic work of the Modern Movement has been exhaustively studied and interpreted, while at the same time it has inspired the work of various generations of architects. Built with glass, steel and different kinds of marble, the Pavilion was conceived to host the official reception presided over by King Alfonso XIII of Spain along with the German authorities.

After the closure of the Exhibition, the Pavilion was disassembled in 1930. As time went by, it became a key point of reference not only in Mies van der Rohe’s own career but also in twentieth-century architecture as a whole. Given the significance and reputation of the Pavilion, thoughts turned towards its possible reconstruction.

In 1980 Oriol Bohigas, as head of the Urban Planning Department at the Barcelona City Council, set the project in motion, designating architects Ignasi de Solà- Morales, Cristian Cirici and Fernando Ramos to research, design and supervise the reconstruction of the Pavilion. Work began in 1983 and the new building was opened on its original site in 1986.

The Fundació Mies van der Rohe was created in 1983 by the Barcelona City Council, with the initial purpose of reconstructing the German Pavilion. Besides conserving and disseminating knowledge about the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, the Fundació today also fosters debate on and awareness of themes related to contemporary architecture and urban planning.

About the EU Mies Award

Initiated in 1987 after an agreement between the European Parliament and Barcelona City Council, the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award has been organized by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe and the European Commission since 2001.

The prize is awarded biennially to works completed in the two years prior to each edition and exceptionally, this year, two and a half years. The main objectives are to achieve a deep understanding of the transformation of the built environment in Europe; recognize and spread excellence and innovation in the field of architecture, and draw attention to the important contribution of European professionals in the development of new ideas with the undeniable support of customers and the involvement of those who will become the users of these sites.

All the works that participate in the EU Mies Award are nominated by a hundred independent European experts, the national architecture associations and the Award Advisory Committee.

WATCH ONLINE PRESENTATION: https://mies.link/LIVE_Programa2022