Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - German Pavilion, Barcelona Exhibition 1929

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - German Pavilion Barcelona - 1929  

Take a look at the photo here of Mies van der Rohe's German Pavilion ... Looks like a house in LA built in 2014 - doesn't it? But, 1929? Think about model-T's, trains and trolley cars, people that still lived in their ancestral log cabins, broadcast radio and phonographs  as high tech, women dressed in full length skirts, government buildings dressed in Romantic colonnades ... think about all that and then look again at this. The German Pavilion at Barcelona was a revolution in design. So, how does someone who has never seen something like this invent it from thin air? I try to answer that question in the academic paper below. But, for those who aren't up for 15 pages of academic term-papery, I'll give a brief description of The Pavilion in the post here.
 

---

---

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)

A Mosaic of
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
at the Museum of Modern Art
New York

The quotable Mies, was an Avant Garde (advanced guard) German architect who invented a distinctive 20th Century style. He was a master of modulated space as was Frank Lloyd Wright. Mies may be more famous for his decisive quotes such as: "God is in the Details." and "Less is more." He was the final director of The Bauhaus School is Dessau. With the rise of the Nazi's, Mies, like many of his peers, moved to America where he designed several high rise structures in New York and Chicago. These include the Seagram's Building in NYC and The Lake Shore Apartments in Chicago.

In his words: “Architecture epitomizes the human being’s spatial confrontation with his environment; it expresses how he asserts himself in it and how he manages to master it.”

---

German Pavilion at the Barcelona International Exhibition 1929

The German Pavilion at the Barcelona Exhibition (1929)

In 1929 Barcelona hosted the International Exhibition. Mies van der Rohe was selected to represent architecture for Germany. His submission is known as the German Pavilion. It was intended to represent a religious temple - with a side entry staircase to a platform. In addition to the glass house at the Pavilion, often not mentioned in articles is the fact that there are classical columns in the landscape leading up to the Pavilion. Messages in art are always up to interpretation, but I think this message was very clear - the Pavilion was to be considered equal to the classical temples of antiquity, and to be unmistakeably 20th century in style. Such a statement is quite bold; it declares the 20th century as equal in might and advancement to the great golden periods of the Greeks and Romans.

While many would place this work of art in other modern movements, I argue in the paper below that it belongs at the pinnacle of German Expressionism - and even further that it is of an epistemology (source of truth and knowledge) that is neither modern nor traditional; it is in fact a foreshadowing of post-modern. Many will disagree, and please do so vocally in the comments below.

---

Myth, Magic, and Desire: German Architecture 1918-1929

By Kenneth Casper,  2010

Contents:

INTRODUCTION
UTOPIA
ABRAXAS
SYNCHRETISM - GLASS CRYSTAL ICONOGRAPHY
1929 BARCELONA WORLD EXHIBITION - GERMAN PAVILION
FOOTNOTES
WORKS CITED


INTRODUCTION

The work of German Expressionists following the First World War was dedicated to promoting and instituting a radical tangent to modern epistemology which could comprehend a futuristic ontology. That is, they envisioned changing the way human beings interacted within their world by changing the nature of existence itself. What does it take to conceive a new existence? The answer for the individual is faith; one must suspend one’s current comprehension of objects and meaning while simultaneously assimilating a fantastic interpretation of his previously understood reality … at least until the fantasy is satisfactorily confirmed. Modernism is a description of a new aesthetic, a new culture, and a historical period; the works of art and architecture which we call modern are the confirmations of what before could only exist within the mind as fantasies.

Deliberate in their intentions, and aware of their purpose – the artists, poets, novelists, and architects of Post‐World War I Europe strived to transcend the modernism already in progress ‐ to squarely dissolve the yoke of historical tradition which bound artists to the objective figural form and people to materialism. Their conception is not the post‐modern epistemology that we adhere to today, nor was it the modern that preceded them and culminated in World War I; rather it was a short lived belief that the there and then [1] existed concurrently with the here and now [2]: Expressionism was a bridge from a rigorously exocentric modern world to the highly internalized and individualized world of today.[3]

Reconciling the dualities pervasive in western culture that had carved the world neatly into good and evil, black and white, outside and inside, led directly to the personal notions of ourselves today as choosers of our own truths and as validators of own self‐worth. Artists and architects reconfigured the world with a futuristic vision. In the founding document of the Staatliches Bauhaus Idea and Construction, Walter Gropius states, “The dominant spirit of our epoch is already recognizable although its form is not yet clearly defined. The old dualistic world‐concept which envisaged the ego in opposition to the universe is rapidly loosing ground. In its place is rising the idea of a universal unity in which all opposing forces exist in a state of absolute balance. No longer can anything exist in isolation. We perceive every form as an idea and every piece of work as a manifestation of our innermost selves.”

Such a statement begs for the penetration of deep enquiry. Gropius at the time of writing this document was a man, like the individual mentioned at the beginning of this paper, who had already suspended his comprehension of reality and was awaiting concrete confirmation of what he imagined.

As Renaissance masters like Donatello worked through their discoveries of perspective and naturalistic representation of figures in reference to the principles of Humanism, so too did the Expressionists work through the abstract representation of the Universal in reference to a set of principles. Yet, this set of principles was not clearly defined. The process of working through the principles of their new epistemology is what characterized 1920’s German Expressionism. This process manifested itself in varying accomplishments including: the reduction of figures to the point of elementarization as demonstrated by Piet Mondrian and Gerrit Rietveld, the syncretism of myths and dogmas from previously established religions with modern scientific perspective, the reinterpretation of glass‐crystal iconography led by Bruno Taut, the institution of socialistic ideals and visions of Utopia advanced within the Bauhaus School of Design, and the reinvestigation of spirituality and its relationship to the arts as demonstrated by Wassily Kandinsky in his documents On the Spiritual in Art.

These investigations taken together represent a Modern Renaissance which equaled the productivity and progressive spirit of Renaissance Italy. With myriad new ideas developing in Northern Europe and circulating around Weimar, the Bauhaus School of Design became like Florence had once been – the center of cultural progress in the Western World.

The ultimate goal of the Expressionists was to literally construct a new Europe of worth and dignity, which would be the Utopia. Their architecture can be distinguished by its symbolic reference to metamorphosis which represents a period of reinvestigation and change towards that end. What follows is an iconological [4] inquiry into the statement by Gropius which so perfectly summarizes the modern revolution that was German Expressionism.

UTOPIA

Figure 2 - George Grosz,
 Fit for Active Service 
(1918) 

Ernst Kirchner painted himself as an ambivalent amputated soldier in his Self‐Portrait as a Soldier. George Grosz drew a medical examiner’s office where doctors declared decayed corpses as healthy candidates for military active service (fig 2). And, Wilhelm Lehmbruck sculpted monumental figures of heroes and kings – cast in cadaverous materials – with their backs bent under the weight of the totality of history. These works show us the personal

consequences of war. Unlike any previous war the First World War delivered destruction with industrial efficiency – cutting down at least eight million Europeans [5] in five years and wounding three times as many while revealing new weapons such as poison gas which would not distinguish between civilian and soldier, friend or enemy.

By 1919, Europe, which was the center of the Universe in the eyes of Europeans, had been wasted, fulfilling the pre‐war poetry of Fillippo Marinetti, “We will glorify war – the world’s only hygiene.”[6] The War was a violent showdown that freed Europe from a continuous progress towards the enrichment of tradition. Historian Roland Schaer notes that “The time had come for a relentless antagonism between the future and the past; the new, a value in and of itself, could come forth in all its radical purity only from the destruction of the old … War was the necessary and welcome fulfillment of this rupture.”[7]

Figure 4, Antonio Sant'Elia,
 La Citta Nuova (1914) 

A world war was imagined to be a sort of liquidation on everything holding back progress. If every academic building was leveled, and every renaissance artwork burned, the people could rise united to embrace a new world order – unshackled from previous dictations of value. However, destruction and devastation badly injured Germany’s ability to rebound in the short term. With its economy ruined in large part due to debt caused by war reparations[8], all building projects that were not directly related to infrastructure were unfunded.[9] The result of the war which futurists advocated is that architecture such as works by Antonio Sant’Elia remain today unbuilt (fig 4). The war had succeeded though, in hastening the resolve of artists to determine a new aesthetic. Although they could not afford to build their paper architecture, architects began to envision what a modern Utopia would look like and how it would function.

Utopia is the imagined socialist island society of Thomas More and is the name of the book he wrote about it in 1515ce. The book is divided into two sections: the first is a satire which criticizes English society and the second is a description of Utopia – a fantasy world where each citizen contributes to the wellbeing of his neighbors; women are equal in status, and all live peacefully and happily. Both parts, it may be assumed, would have been provocative to Post‐World War Germans: One, because it was a scathing review of the rich and nobles – their excessive taxation and ruinous wars; and two, because it offered a blueprint of a totally designed society. More’s mythical Island of Utopia could be considered a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art.

The pleasing and picturesque natural simplicity of More’s Utopia is partly determined by its architecture which was standardized and organized into a national scheme of fifty four “faire cities,” each identical.[10] This scheme and its rigid uniformity was not enforced by an authority, rather it was adopted by the Utopians for the purpose of self‐protection and prosperity.[11] “The person who knows one city will know them all.”[12]

A feature of particular interest to twentieth century architects is More’s premonition of modern elementarizaion. According to Francoise Choay’s interpretation of Utopia, “This urban configuration permits no extraordinary or whimsical features. Rationalized and subject to geometry, its function is to ensure the equality of all its cities, to compel each citizen to occupy his own place and to play his part within the community.”[13] Austerity for such a reason makes the argument against ornamentation more robust. In following the principles of neo‐plasticism, ornamentation is considered vulgar for two reasons: one, because ornamentation was used excessively in past movements from which the moderns were attempting to diverge; and two, because ornamentation disguises the pure forms that define space – the point, the line, and the plane.

The idea of a flattened social structure, where each citizen enjoys the same luxuries as the next, conserves resources so that they may be used by others, and where people understand themselves as geometric puzzle pieces who contribute the same amount to the composition of the whole is an ideal consistent with progressive attitudes in Post‐War Germany. Thomas More’s description of Utopia provides a template for architects planning the future layout and structure of Europe’s cities. It is a socialist ideal, which unlike communism has room for a democratic government and capitalism – as long as materialism is mitigated.

Figure 5, Mies van der Rohe, Friedrechstrafe 
Office Building Project (1921)  

The mythological Utopia could be realized. Europe was prepared for it: the continent had parted with the constraints of its past, industrialism was matured and capable of supporting a socialist society, and the technology to house an entire township in one skyscraper was available. So, in paper architecture Utopia began to manifest itself with crystal cathedrals like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Skyscraper Projects (fig 5), and Bruno Taut’s Crystal House in the Mountains (fig 6). These visionary structures incorporated iconography and form dictated by twentieth Century syncretic religions which co‐opted ideas from Gnostics going back to Zoroastrianism. It is interesting to note the coincidence that the original name of the island where Thomas More’s Utopians built their idyllic nation is Abraxas, also the name of the Gnostic god of unity.

Figure 6, Bruno Taut, Alpine Architecture,
 Approach to Crystal House (1919) 

ABRAXAS

Walter Gropius was awarded the directorship of the Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar, which he renamed: Staatliches Bauhaus or “house of building.” The Bauhaus was a school of arts and crafts. But, under Gropius, who was influenced by the Novembergruppe, a coalition of socialist thinkers, the school attracted a roster of elite intellectuals interested in influencing both culture and society.

The main objective of the Novembergruppe was the union of art and people. In addition to his role in the Novembergruppe Gropius was one of the correspondents who wrote to one another about spiritual and philosophical questions that preoccupied artists and intellectuals – the letters now known as the Chrystal Chain Letters.[14] Spiritual metaphors discussed in these letters found their way, not so subtly, into the praxis of The Bauhaus curriculum. A student’s journey from the basic course through levels of craft to the final center – architecture – is akin to a spiritual awakening.

Wassily Kandinsky, a member of the Novembergruppe, and later an instructor at The Bauhaus echoed a statement, first employed by Friedrich Nietzsche in his 1912 publication of Concerning the Spiritual in Art, “Heaven is Empty. God is dead.”[15] He described a pyramid of spiritual achievement. At the lowest level are the Catholics, Jews, and Protestants whom he calls “atheists.”[16] In the middle are scientists. And at the cap of the pyramid are scientists who have adopted primitivism, “Those who put no trust in the methods of material science when it deals with questions which have to do with “non‐matter,” or matter that is not accessible to our senses.”[17] It is non‐matter that Kandinsky and his contemporaries believe is worthy of spiritual devotion. Though, each member of the Novembergruppe, it appears, subscribed to a different sect or cult – in total they were all Gnostics. Gnosticism is a practice of faith which favors knowledge over dogma and is characterized by a belief in gnosis, through which the spiritual elements of a person may be released from its bondage to matter.[18]

It is non‐matter that modern art deals with directly. Discoveries of modern science exposed space between electrons and black holes in the Universe.[19] There was during the life of Kandinsky empirical evidence of non‐matter’s existence. Modern art sought to communicate what this non‐material world looked like, behaved like, and to describe its essence.

Figure 7, Andre Derain, Charing Crossing (1905) 

It was convenient that a bridge and shoreline laid out an interesting composition in André Derain’s Charing Crossing, but it was the composition of the colors that was the subject (fig 7). It was convenient that a church steeple stood over the town painted by Vincent van Gogh in Starry Night, but the stars and the lights of the town were only an excuse to paint expressive lines (fig 8). Since impressionism, the aesthetics of art favored more and more the reduced depiction of abstractions – something non‐material – something closer to truth. In the twentieth century painting became an act of gnosis, a process only completed when a viewer apprehended the spiritual truth represented by the artist. The function of architecture changed as well. Those elements which are necessary in construction could be dissolved so that an occupant of architecture could experience pure space.

Figure 8, Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night (1889) 

So far, I have described why Thomas More’s Utopia became a prototype for twentieth century European architects – because it supported the notion of socialism as the ideal society and imagined that socialist citizens would live in cities designed to reflect and enable such a society. Second, I have determined that the ideas of spiritual Gnosticism reinforced the arguments of Walter Gropius. Third, I have interpreted, from the writing of Wassily Kandinsky, that Gnosticism held a special draw as a spiritual framework because it could incorporate twentieth century scientific discoveries. But, what is more important to understand about Kandinsky and his contemporaries is that ‐ not only did they live at a time of great scientific achievement, but that in the historical progression of the arts, from the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt to the frescos of Giotto to the allegories of Peter Paul Rubens to Édouard Manet’s Olympia – through the impressionists and post‐impressionists – they saw that all achievements in art culminated in the formal abstraction of twentieth century modernism. What’s more, they believed that the artist’s role had been elevated to the highest levels of prominence within society. They themselves were scientists of art who would reduce representation down to its fundamental building blocks with scientific precision. And in addition to being scientists, they were spiritual mediums who would describe as best as they could with primitive materials the essence and form of non‐matter. So, the question that remains is: how does an artist or a scientist study the intangible, the spiritual, the abstract?

When a portraitist begins to sketch, the subject of the portrait is standing before him. When Claude Monet painted his famous wheat stacks, we assume that he journeyed out into fields at early hours and in plein air, studied stacks of wheat. This situation becomes more challenging when the portraitist cannot see his subject. This conflict – that the non‐material exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time is why the words of Walter Gropius are so important in understanding German Expressionism: “The old dualistic world‐concept which envisaged the ego in opposition to the universe is rapidly loosing ground.” We must look somewhere for an image of the Universal, and that place is within ourselves.

According to Sigmund Freud, the ego is the part of the mind that contains the consciousness.[20] Freud identified the word ego, a sense of self, as an individual’s center of psychic functions such as judgment, planning, synthesis of information, intellectual functioning, and memory.[21] The self … the ego … that is the place where artists may go to find models of the non‐material‐abstract‐world.

There is a problem, however, with looking inward for the subject of artistic representation. The sacred model of modernism relies on external authority; universal truth exists outside of the individual. Judeo‐Christian doctrine stresses that an individual cannot comprehend the Universal because all individuals are fundamentally unworthy of such an act. According to Bishop Wuerl in The Catholic Way, “All of creation, goodness, and love are God’s handiworks, but sin is most assuredly ours. God looked on all the he made, including us, and proclaimed that it is was very good. Yet, into this world, created in goodness and out of God’s love, Adam and Eve and each of us continuously introduced that human rebellion that claims the name sin.”[22] What Wuerl specifically refers to is original sin, or the original desire by Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. According to Christian teachings, from this point on, all humans are burdened with sin. That is, as phrased by Gropius: they are in opposition to the Universe.

The Christian point of view is logical, especially when we consider the philosophical meaning of sin to be materialism. A living human being may contemplate the Universal, but only when the human spirit has shed its materialism through death can one really understand non-matter. That is, only non-material beings can understand what it is to be non-material. From this interpretation, original sin is the act of being born and having a body.

For Kandinsky, as well as Gropius and all of the members of the Novembergruppe, the notion that nothing pure could come from within, needed to be overthrown. The idea that the very act of being born, of having material reality, is pessimistic; and pessimism is not an ideal in‐synch with The Utopia. The creation of modern art needed to be purely subjective while Judeo‐Christian epistemology could not accept the validity of a subjective viewpoint. This conflict, between Judeo‐Christian modernity and what would become post‐modern epistemology – between the validity of objective and subjective realities – was most eloquently debated in the oeuvre of Herman Hesse, of which the 1919 publication of Demian, The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth became an essential analysis of the problems with a dualistic worldview.

The level to which the German Expressionists believed that the truth was within the self is expressed in this passage from Demian:

…If the outside world were to be destroyed, a single one of us would be capable of rebuilding it: mountain and stream, tree and leaf, root and flower, yes, every natural form is latent within us, originates in the soul whose essence is eternity, whose essence we cannot know but which most often intimates itself to us as the power to love and create.

… We always define the limits of our personality too narrowly. In general, we count as part of our personality only that which we can recognize as being an individual trait or as diverging from the norm. But we consist of everything the world consists of, each of us, and just as our body contains the genealogical table of evolution as far back as the fish and even much further, so we bear everything in our soul that once was alive in the soul of men. Every god and devil that ever existed are within us. … If the human race were to vanish from the face of the earth save for one halfway talented child that had received no education this child would rediscover the entire course of evolution, it would be capable of producing everything once more, gods and demons, paradises, commandments, the Old and New Testament.[23]

According to Hesse, in this sample of his heroic character’s dialogue, not only is the ego in tandem with the Universe – it is the Universe. Hesse quickly reminds us that though the Universe is within us a significant spiritual triumph is required to become one with it:

“Why do we continue striving if everything has been completed within us?”

“Stop,” exclaimed Pistorius. “There’s an immense difference between simply carrying the world within us and being aware of it. A madman can spout ideas that remind you of Plato, and a pious little seminary student rethinks deep mythological correspondences found among the Gnostics or in Zoroaster. But he isn’t aware of them. He is a tree or stone, at best an animal, as long as he is not conscious. But as soon as the first spark of recognition dawns within him he is a human being.

This edit by Hesse presents a milieu of problems; mainly, that though we may look within ourselves for the ultimate truth, it is not necessarily provided that we will be able to recognize it. The obvious question of a creative individual, having read this passage is, “once I am aware that all of the forms of the universe are within, how can I reproduce them in art?” This question gets to the pith of the complication because it asks how to make materials from non‐matter.

Figure 9, Gerrit Rietveld, Red-Blue Chair (1918) 

The members of the Novembergruppe, despite their spiritual enthusiasm were forced to accept a degree of materialism. For example, no matter how well Gerrit Reitveld represented lines and planes, ultimately his Red‐Blue Chair was constructed of cellulosic material (fig 9). For the Red‐Blue Chair to return to the abstract idea which Reitveld concieved, it needed to be percieved. Modern art necessitates the participation of the viewer. For a viewer to percieve the Universal in the Red‐Blue Chair, the viewer must undergo gnosis. The internal force which intervenes and drives us towards gnosis is Abraxas.

According to the Gnostics, this world, the material cosmos, is the result of a primordial error on the part of the divine being, Sophia or “Wisdom.” Her desire was to understand the fullness of the One Beyond Being which was an error in judgment since nothing or no one can comprehend the totality of everything in one moment. Our material world then is a manifestation of her rejected desire. Existence is titled demiurge or “craftsman.” As Sophia interprets the abstract quality of leafness in her quest to know all things, the demiurge creates a leaf with the quality of leafness. This process of her desiring and the craftsman creating material reality is ongoing and current. Time does not truly exist – so the whole history of existence as we perceive it is representative of the instant of her desire.

It is important not to think of Sophia, or The One Beyond Being as a thinking feeling god who exists separately and above human beings. To the Gnostics we are as much a facet of Sophia, Sophia’s desire, and The One Beyond Being as Sophia and the Demiurge are. Rather, Sophia is a force, the force of wisdom, and her desire is the force of craftsmanship. If the force of wisdom leads one to an idea then it is instantly manifested. This means that an idea cannot be isolated from material existence; nor can a material form exist in isolation from an idea.

To think of Sophia as a divine god separate from us introduces a duality – the dualism of the divine and the earthly. Dualism is typical of many Gnostic systems. However, for our purpose, I will only concentrate on Valentinian Gnostics who approach the idea of materiality in a monistic way. “The Valentinian tradition conceives of materiality, rather than as being a separate substance from the divine, as attributable to an error of perception, which becomes symbolized mythopoetically as the act of material creation.”[24] Walter Gropius moves towards Valentinian monisticism when he states, “The old dualistic world‐concept which envisaged the ego in opposition to the universe is rapidly loosing ground.”[25]

Sophia represents ignorance of the non‐material world, where Abraxas represents comprehension of the non‐material. They are one inseparable pair. So, it is the force Abraxas who we encounter when we attempt to comprehend non‐matter. In fact, it is Abraxas who interferes, interacts, and directs us towards comprehending the abstract for ignorance must always be in balance with awareness.[26] The aeon of Sophia and Abraxas is referred to when Gropius states, “… In its place is rising the idea of a universal unity in which all opposing forces exist in a state of absolute balance.”

Furthermore, Abraxas makes us aware of the monistic character of existence. As stated in Hesse’s Demian, “It appears that Abraxas has much deeper significance. We may conceive of the name as that of a godhead whose symbolic task is the uniting of godly and devilish elements.”[27] Abraxas then becomes one of the most important metaphorical figures to the Expressionists. It is the force known as Abraxas that we must encounter if we are to know the Universal. In Demian, an extended metaphor is referred to throughout the text – that of a bird fighting its way out of an egg. The bird is the expressionist, a creator, “The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God’s name is Abraxas.”[28]

SYNCHRETISM - GLASS CRYSTAL ICONOGRAPHY

An iconology, a systematic interpretation of dogmatic, symbolic and the mystical sense in the figural forms of Expressionist architecture is more clear when we consider the influence of Gnostic mythology on expressionist literature and artwork. Though Kandinsky and Hesse were not architects, their works provide insight into the manner in which, under the historical conditions following World War I, specific themes and concepts were expressed by objects and events – events such as the founding of the Bauhaus School of Design by Walter Gropius. Like Kandinsky’s introduction of abstract forms in painting, Expressionism brought to architecture a nonobjective approach. Expressionist architecture can be defined as architecture that signifies a changed German society and relies on metaphors of transformation. In their endeavor to create such architectonic sculpture, the expressionists meditated deeply on glass-crystal iconography.

Image 10, Mies van der Rohe, Glass Industry 
Exhibit of the Werkbund Exposition (1927) 

The transparency and plasticity of glass make it the perfect material for architecture (img. 10). Plasticity allows for the shape of the architecture to be sculpted and transparency has a rich legacy as a metaphor of transformation.

From the very beginning of its use as a building material, or even as a fantasized building material, glass symbolized the power of illusion: the power of magic.[29] Later in history, as science and spirituality began to mingle, materials were classified by their mystical characteristics as basic or noble. The search for noble materials was the quest of the alchemist. The lapis or philosopher’s stone and elixir vitae were mythological instruments which could transmute base materials into noble ones. Because of its transparency, its hardness, and geometric structure, the diamond was suspected to be the philosopher’s stone. It has since carried the symbolism of transcendence and metamorphosis. The legend of the alchemist’s search for the philosopher’s stone

The legend of the alchemist’s search for the philosopher’s stone is influenced by the search for the Holly Grail. Finding the grail not only brought salvation to the knight who found it, but also renewal for the whole realm. The Grail and the philosopher’s stone are each enigmatic items, items which are impossible to find, yet the journey to find them is symbolic of introspection and self-discovery. Finding the philosopher’s stone, like finding the Grail, represents an intuitive apprehension of spiritual truth attained through transformation caused by inward reflection; in other words: gnosis. This is precisely the sort of egocentric mysticism that, as a metaphor, appealed to the expressionists.

A German Expressionist epistemology is a syncretism of ideals, fantasies, mysticism, dogmas, legends, and myths all circulating around the conception of introspection, gnosis, and transformation. Nineteen twenties Germany was a particular time and place when and where subjectivity and gnosis dethroned objectivity and materialism.

1929 BARCELONA WORLD EXHIBITION - GERMAN PAVILION

When in 1918 Walter Gropius penned Idea and Construction the form of Expressionism was not yet clearly defined. By 1929 it had fully matured. The 1929 German Pavilion at The Barcelona World Exposition, designed by Mies van der Rohe, was an exclamation of a decade in achievement and advancement in the arts dominated by German intellectuals. The architecture of Mies van der Rohe owes its conception to the iconographical forms of Expressionism, Neo-Plasticism, and Futurism – but Mies gave these new forms a poetic existence which displaced all previous architecture decisively into the past. Mies van der Rohe reintroduced pleasure and art in a way that expressed the ideas of construction. His Barcelona Pavilion is the confirmation of a fantastic vision outlined in the founding document of The Bauhaus.

Remembering that Expressionist architecture is defined by characteristics of transformation, representing the process of Germany’s schism with its traditional past and its embrace of a socialist-utopic and optimistic future, we can surmise the experience of an occupant in Mies’s Pavilion to be transcendental. If Mies had truly delivered an Expressionist architecture then the experience should be equal to putting your hand against a mirror and pushing it through the surface. A journalist wrote this account of the 1929 Exposition:

  Image 11 German Pavilion (1929)

The visitor has entered. He crosses each of the empty rooms, from which it seems that someone has just left: his furniture is there, and in his rush he’s left the doors open. Perhaps that’s why the summer breeze is already rustling a few leaves. He enters the other lounge: the same scene. The bleary perspectives which he can see on the walls seem to him like endless flights (img. 11). Now he hurriedly seeks out the centre of the house. He moves back through the sequence of segmented spaces, sometimes entering the same lounge from different angles, and he seems to recognize it, either it was the same, or perhaps he had not entered there before. An invisible occupant seems always to have left before the visitor arrived, and though he may be followed he will never be found. …in a flash of lucidity he is remembering what has been happening: It was he, erratic and disorientated, who had left each room the very moment he himself had come in.[30]

Image 12 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 
German Pavilion Barcelona - 1929  

Beyond this testimony, no further proof of my case is required. The German Pavilion in Barcelona is a definition of modern architecture. It necessitated the viewer to encounter a subjective truth – it caused him to encounter himself. In this act of abandoning ignorance the viewer has transcended from the material world to the Universal. This magnificent rebirth has been brought about by the one material with which Mies van der Rohe has employed: reflection (img. 12). The pavilion is a mirror.

Let us step back for a moment form the intangible. What is it that makes reflection the material of this architecture? Every surface is an element of reflection. Travertine marble, glass, chrome, and water each are chosen for their reflectivity. Mies’s composition of these elements maximizes their reflective qualities so that in places there are reflections of reflections of reflections (img. 11).

Image 13, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
German Pavilion Barcelona - 1929  

As a result, everything in the pavilion could be seen as contrasting pairs. “The dark outline of the pool is the light outline of the roof (img. 13).”[31] These pairs become nearly indistinguishable. In this sense, Mies has destroyed duality. Abraxas and Sophia combine as one contrasting pair. Like an object and its reflection, we accept two separate entities while knowing that the source of both is from one (img. 14). The German Pavilion proves this; it shows us this.
While the German Pavilion was only one link in the crystal chain, it effectively completes the Expressionist epoch. By 1929 the forms of expressionism are recognizable. A person standing within The Pavilion is no longer in isolation (img. 13). The Universe is at his feet and all opposing forces are in absolute balance – able to be turned in every direction while remaining stable and supported. With their ideas saturated in mythology and brought into the material world through the magical illusory property of reflections, the Expressionists have manifested their innermost selves in the architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Had their era not ended abruptly on account of the rising Nazi regime, the Expressionists’ goal of transforming Germany into Utopia may have been realized. Yet, perhaps there is a final truth which their Pavilion can reveal: its dismantling was a reflection of its construction. Inward reflection on this idea cues us to consider our own lives and mortality. Ultimately, fullness of optimism is equaled by impoverishment. Perhaps this reveals a reason for a common response when approaching a work of art whether classical or modern: forced to encounter the truth within ourselves we experience a mixture of wonder and awe, fear and solemnity.

Image 14, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
German Pavilion Barcelona - 1929  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Footnotes:

[1] There and then refers to a modern epistemology from an anthropological point of view. In the Eliadean Sacred model the nature of truth and knowledge exists in a place that is not here and now, so it is there and then. Modern epistemology became dominant with the spread of major doctrinal religions including: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. These religions are consistent across geographical space due in large part to indoctrination which required non‐local authority for their existence. Thus, authority is there and then. Source: R. L. Stirrat, Sacred Models, (The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1984): 199‐215.

[2] The Durkheimian Sacred Model describes the “here and now” as emblematic of traditional epistemology and is related to tribal cultures where the most important events are here and now. Source: Stirrat, 200.

[3] Post‐Modern epistemology from an anthropological point of view describes a purely subjective definition of truth and knowledge. Developed by Victor Turner, a post‐modern religious framework is one in which the individual decides what the nature of reality is; meaning that god is within the individual and is unlike the god within any other individual. This point of view became the dominant epistemology in industrialized nations following World War II and continues today – though its academic foundation is attributed to Karl Marx. Source: Stirrat, 200.

[4] Iconological in this context refers to a tripartite method of interpretation defined by Erwin Panofsky. The three parts are: Pre‐iconographical description which is concerned with the identification of factual subjects and historical conditions; iconographical analysis involving the linking of artistic motifs with allegories and literary sources; and finally iconographical interpretation which is concerned with interpreting intrinsic meaning and content. Source:
Achim Timmerman, “Iconology, logos, Herkules am Scheidewege, Studies in Iconology,
Meaning in the Visual Arts, http://arts.jrank.org/pages/15605/iconology.html, (2009).

[5] Wikipedia Contributors, “WWI,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wwi.

[6] Apollonio – Umbro, Futurist Manifestos (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), 2.

[7] Roland Schaer, Utopia : The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) 278.

[8] Wikipedia Contributors, 1.

[9] Rosemarie Haag Bletter, “The Interpretation of the Glass Dream‐Expressionist Architecture and the History of the Crystal Metaphor,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 40.1 (1981): 20‐43.

[10] Schaer, 249.

[11] Russell Ames, Interpreting Thomas More's Utopia (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989), 86.

[12] Schaer, 249.

[13] Schaer, 347.

[14] Iain Boyd White, ed. The Crystal Chain Letters : Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut and His Circle (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1985), 1.

[15] Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art ([New ed.] ed. London: Tate, 2006),
30.

[16] Kandinsky, 32.

[17] Kandinsky, 29.

[18] Free Dictionary Contributors, “Gnosis,” The Free Dictionary,
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gnosis (2000 Updated in 2009.

[19] Wikipedia Contributors, “General Relativity,” Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#History.

[20] Sigmund Freud, On Dreams (London: The Hogarth Press, 1974), 644.

[21] Unidentified Author, “Structure of Mind:Freud's Id, Ego, & Superego,
http://wilderdom.com/personality/L8‐4StructureMindIdEgoSuperego.html (28 Jul
2004).

[22] Bishop Donald Wuerl, The Catholic Way (New York: Doubleday, 2001) 243.

[23] Hermann Hesse, Demian : The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth (1st Perennial Classics ed. New York: Perennial Classics, 1999) 88.

[24] Wikipedia Contributos, “Gnosticism,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism.

[25] Dualism is expressed in Valentinianism through mutually dependant pairs or “aeons.” An aeon could be light and darkness. It is an inseparable pair, because light could not possibly be conceived if we could not compare it to darkness. In this view, Sophia is an aeon and her mutually dependant pair is Abraxas.

[26] Wikipedia Contributors /Gnosticism.

[27] Hesse, 78.

[28] Hesse, 76.

[29] The earliest source of glass iconography can be found in The Old Testament as a biblical description of Solomon’s Great Temple. According to legend, The Temple of Solomon is constructed with glass floors, to reveal to The King whether the visiting Queen of Sheba is a woman or a Genie. Genies were rumored to have hairy legs. On entering the temple the queen, unfamiliar with the illusory effects of glass believed that the king was sitting in a pool of water and lifted her skirt to keep it dry, exposing herself as a genie. Source: Bletter, 24.

[30] Josep Quetglas, Fear of Glass : Mies Van Der Rohe's Pavilion in Barcelona (Boston: Birkha Publishers for Architecture, 2001) 129‐133.

[31] Quetglas, 136.

Works Cited

Ames, Russell Abbot. 1912-. Citizen Thomas More and His Utopia. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1949.

Ames considers the contemporary analysis of Thomas More’s Utopia and criticizes both their viewpoints. Ames considers More to be a hero in that he objected to the decadent feudalism of his day. The acknowledgements page implies that this is an academic work that was peer reviewed by professors at notable universities in the United States. I have used this work to verify information presented and cited from internet sources, as well as a general understanding of More’s Utopia.


Ames, Russell. Interpreting Thomas More's Utopia. New York: Fordham University Press, 1989.

Interpreting More’s Utopia is a compendium of edited articles on the history of the impact from Thomas More’s classic work, Utopia. Articles move through contemporary history in a fast paced abbreviated way: it reads like an encyclopedia. Articles favored the history of Utopia from the point of view of totalitarian regimes such as the communist USSR and Nazi Germany. Sections that are cited from this book mainly summarize the point of view expressionist architects may have taken concerning the philosophical status of constructed space and how this philosophy connects to the Utopian ideals expressed by Thomas More.


Bayer, Herbert, ed. Bauhaus, 1919-1928. Boston: C.T. Branford Co., 1938.

Bauhaus 1919-1928 contains the only translated full version of Idea and Construction, written by Walter Gropius. This manifesto, Idea and Construction, served as a primary source revealing the philosophical concerns discussed in this paper. The quote cited from this book serves as the thesis and reason for this paper.


Bletter, Rosemarie Haag. "The Interpretation of the Glass Dream-Expressionist Architecture and the History of the Crystal Metaphor." The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 40.1 (1981): 20-43.

Bletter presents an excellent condensed analysis of the iconography of glass. ‘Interpretation…’ contains excellent citations and is an expertly crafted document.


Doesburg, Theo van. Principles of Neo-Plastic Art. [Greenwich, Conn.]: New York Graphic Society, [1968].

A Primary source on the theories of De Stijl. During the 1920’s he was the leading contributor to the De Stijl magazine. He will be quoted by every credible source researching architecture and art during the decade of the 1920’s.


Freud, Sigmund. On Dreams. New York: Norton, [1989].

A primary source which discusses “the ego” and how it was understood at the time of The Expressionists.


Hartoonian, Gevork. "Mies Van Der Rohe: The Genealogy of Column and Wall." Journal of Architectural Education (1984-) 42.2 (1989): 43-50.


Hesse, Hermann, 1877-1962. Demian : The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth. 1st Perennial Classics Ed. New York: Perennial Classics, 1999.

A primary source if read metaphorically. Hesse is a Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature for his contributions to German Expressionist Literature. Demian is a fictional book in that its characters and storyline are fictional, but these are used to consider all of the main themes concerning expressionism following World War I.


Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. [New ed.] London: Tate, 2006.

A primary source used to verify Wikipedia information on the role of Gnosticism in the philosophy of German Expressionism.


Nyberg, Folke. "From Baukunst to Bauhaus." Journal of Architectural Education (1984-) 45.3 (1992): 130-7.

Used for general knowledge about the role of mysticism in German Expressionist art and architecture. Nyberg’s article has been peer reviewed, features thorough citations and appears to be credible.


Quetglas, Josep. Fear of Glass : Mies Van Der Rohe's Pavilion in Barcelona. English ed. Ed. Basel ; Boston: Birkha-Publishers for Architecture, 2001.

Transcript of a lecture on the Barcelona Pavilion which also features academic essays on the details of its construction and Mies Van Der Rohe’s philosophy and influences. -Clearly my favorite source for this paper. It includes many primary source narratives and descriptions of the structure from those who witnessed the original exposition.


Schaer Roland, Claeys Gregory, Sargent Lyman Tower, ed. Utopia : The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World. New York: New York Public Library/Oxford University Press, 2000.

A compendium of edited articles on the history of the impact from Thomas More’s classic work, Utopia. Articles move through contemporary history in a fast paced abbreviated way: it reads like an encyclopedia. Articles favored the history of Utopia from the point of view of totalitarian regimes such as the communist USSR and Nazi Germany. Sections that are cited from this book mainly summarize the point of view that expressionist architects may have taken concerning the philosophical status of constructed space and how this philosophy connects to the Utopian ideals expressed by Thomas More.


Stirrat, R. L. "Sacred Models." Man 19.2 (1984): 199-215.

Describes epistemologies from an anthropological point of view with shocking clarity.


White, Iain Boyd, ed. The Crystal Chain Letters : Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut and His Circle. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985.

Primary sources concerning the iconography of glass, Gnostic religious principles, and the philosophy employed by Post WWI architects.


Wuerl, Donald, Bishop. The Catholic Way. New York: Doubleday, 2001.

Used to confirm an understanding of Modernism as a sacred model and epistemology.

Web Sources

Achim Timmerman, “Iconology, logos, Herkules am Scheidewege, Studies in Iconology, Meaning in the Visual Arts.” http://arts.jrank.org/pages/15605/iconology.html, (2009).

A description of iconological process. This paper follows the format laid out in this article. The paper is divided into three parts: The first provides a historical background, the second links literary sources, the third is iconographical analysis.

Brons, David. "Valentinus and the Valentinian Tradition." 10/11/2009 <http://www.gnosis.org/library/valentinus/Valentinian_Monism.htm>.

A good description of the Gnostic sect of Valentinus. Information here is repeated on several other Gnostic web pages and appears to be credible. The site also contains citations and sources. This work will be cited in this paper as a main source of information on this particular Gnostic sect.

Moore, Edward. "Gnosticism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]." 10/11/2009 <http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/g/gnostic.htm>.

This site was used to verify information gathered and cited from Wikipedia.


Wikipedia contributors. "Abraxas " Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
---. "Cainites " Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
---. "Demian " Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
---. "Gnosticism " Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Wikipedia sites were used for general information on Gnostic religion and its use in the early 20th century. Thee pages were well sourced and cited.

---