Horta & Guinardó

In Barcelona’s Parc de la Clota, close to the villa known as the Torre Lluçana in the neighbourhood of Horta-Guinardó, we come across the reproduction of the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic, originally designed by the architects Josep Lluís Sert and Luis Lacasa as the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exhibition.

This landmark building was rebuilt for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. The Pavilion of the Republic represented a cry of protest against the war that was raging in Spain and Barcelona at the time. It showcased such groundbreaking, politically engaged works as Picasso’s Guernica and Miró’s The Reaper. Alexander Calder’s Mercury Fountain was also created for the pavilion and is currently on show at the Fundació Miró.

The Pavilion of the Republic was built with limited materials due to the circumstances of the time, and as a result, it was designed as a large empty container, with practically no walls, which marked out a route. The metal structure enclosed the glass compartments on the first floor and the fibre-cement compartments on the second floor. The reconstructed pavilion currently houses a library.