Cover photo: Åkerblom Studio

art intervention by Centrala (Małgorzata Kuciewicz, Simone De Iacobis) at the Barcelona Pavilion, Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona, 2022–

The intervention reintroduces a constellation of waterlilies that have once inhabited the larger pool of the Barcelona Pavilion. 

The project adds a finishing touch to the 1980s reconstruction of the iconic design by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. A cluster of water plants, visible in photos from 1929 and recalled by visitors at the time, have been long overlooked by the history of design. The intervention by CENTRALA, rather than offering a faithful reconstruction, contemplates the richness of aquatic botany and its relation to architecture. 

The water plants – present also in other Mies van der Rohe and Reich’s projects from around 1930 – once formed a frequent component of architectural compositions. Used by architects and landscape designers, including Roberto Burle Marx, Isamu Noguchi, Gio Ponti, Carlo Scarpa and Pietro Porcinai, they were blossoming especially at the world’s fairs. Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace at the 1851 London’s Great Exhibition with its structure inspired by a leaf of Victoria amazonica, and Joseph Bury Latour-Marliac’s presentation of hybrid species that enraptured Claude Monet at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle created a long-lasting relationship between aquatic botany and international exhibitions that included the 1929 Expo in Barcelona. Yet, today the waterlilies have disappeared from most of their former architectural settings. The intervention at the Barcelona pavilion intends to bring them back to the architectural imagination.

The current composition of the pool consists of white waterlilies of both hybrid (Nymphaea ‘Walter Pagels’, Nymphaea Marliacea Chromatella Empordà, and night-blooming Nymphaea ‘Trudy Slocum’) and botanical origin (Nymphaea alba and Catalonian Nymphaea alba from the delta of Ebro River), as well as other plants (Potamogeton natans, Potamogeton coloratus, Ceratophyllum demersum), insects and microorganisms (Dafnia, Notonecta glauca, Cyclopoida) that help keep the water clean. The new image of the pool contributes to current debates on biodiversity, renaturalization and design of urban microclimates. It also encourages new readings of the iconic pavilion, with its pool being no longer only a flat and reflective surface contributing to the abstract structure of the building, but also a small ecosystem that resonates with the rhythms of nature.

Authors: CENTRALA (Małgorzata Kuciewicz, Simone De Iacobis)

Curator: Aleksandra Kędziorek

Curator on behalf of the Mies van der Rohe Foundation: Ivan Blasi

Project coordinator: Adriana Mas

Aquatic botany: Carles Palau (Viver Tres Turons)

Pavilion management: Víctor Sanchez

Architectural consultations: Fernando Ramos

Video documentation: Åkerblom Studio

The project was supported by the Polish Institute in Madrid. 

Research

The research phase of the project took place in the Tugendhat villa in Brno, Botanical Garden in Padua and Fundació Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona (07.-09.2021). The study visits were possible thanks to the i-Portunus mobility grant.

Follow us on Instagram: @hydrobotany_and_architecture

Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 1919 - 1935. J. Zakolski, garden at Wenedów street by Park Traugutta in Warsaw. 1938. Brazilian pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s fair The world smallest water lily, Nymphaea thermarum, in the Fata Morgana Greenhouse of @botanicka_zahrada_praha 🪷🪷🪷 So happy to share that our water plants pots ore spreading all over Poland! Thanks to the incredible effort of @tamituecho now you can visit 3 of them by the main entrance @nomusgdansk - those are of particular beauty because of the steel construction supporting the bowl, much like the legendary Bo Bardi chair. Sangath, Balkrishna Doshi’s own studio, Ahmedabad, India. 1981. Leberecht Migge, the Reinhardt garden in Hamburg-Reinbek located on the banks of the Bille river. Migge utilized water areas for cultivating native water plants, contrasting with darker evergreen shore plantings. 1907 The Botanical Garden of the University of Wrocław, founded in 1811. During the Napoleonic Wars the garden was damaged after the city fortifications were destroyed. Part of the garden featured a branch off the Odra river and was filled in during the conflict, but has since been restored as a large lily pond. In 1967 a special pool for aquatic plants was built according to the design of architect Tadeusz Zipser. Moreover one of the green house nurseries is entirely dedicated to Hydrobotany. We got there on a rainy day, finding most blossoms closed for the occasion. Roberto Burle Marx, roof garden for the Headquarters of the Insurance Institute of Brazil, built between 1941 and 1944 in Rio de Janeiro. The whole building with its passive climatic features on the elevations and a green-blue roof is itself a manifesto of sustainable design in large scale constructions. The garden was carefully restored by the Burle Marx Office, now led by Isabela Ono and Gustavo Leiras. It opened again to the public in 2017 (last image). #robertoburlemarx #hydrobotany Jean Canneel-Claes, 1947, Woluwe, Belgium.