The Mies Pavillon in Barcelona: a polemical reconstruccion

The article «The Mies pavilion in Barcelona: a polemical reconstruction» presents a fair sample of the different opinions that have appeared as a result of the reconstruction, in Barcelona, of the pavilion that Mies van der Rohe built in 1929. Although the official and most widespread view-point is favourable towards the project, several criticisms have sprung from different sources, of which this article shall try to give an organized account and place within the right context. Thus the article takes a look at the main subjects on which the polemics has centered: the suitability of reconstructing a work of art of the past; whether or not the essence of the pavilion lies in its ephemeral character; the location of the reconstructed pavilion; the ideological appraisal of the pro­ject the relation to the pavilion's contemporary myth seen through its photographs and the technical correctness of the replica. The article follows diallectically all these antagonistic arguments and concludes by postulating the need to speak of replica and not re­construction.