The Pavilion of the Spanish Republic opens its doors in the eightieth anniversary of its opening in Paris
This year is the eightieth anniversary of the opening of the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic at the International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in Paris in 1937, an emblematic building that held works such as Guernika, which Picasso painted for the occasion, and showed the situation of the Spanish Government and society to the world, a situation deep in a fight against fascism. Some decades later, on the occasion of the 1992 Olympic Games, the Pavilion was rebuilt in the district of Horta-Guinardó, in Barcelona, and is now the headquarters of the Center of International Historical Studies (CEHI) and the Pavelló de la República CRAI Library of the UB. These two entities are organizing a series of activities this year to commemorate both the anniversary of the original building and the twenty-five years of the current building.
This year is the eightieth anniversary of the opening of the Pavilion of the Spanish Republic at the International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in Paris in 1937, an emblematic building that held works such as Guernika, which Picasso painted for the occasion, and showed the situation of the Spanish Government and society to the world, a situation deep in a fight against fascism. Some decades later, on the occasion of the 1992 Olympic Games, the Pavilion was rebuilt in the district of Horta-Guinardó, in Barcelona, and is now the headquarters of the Center of International Historical Studies (CEHI) and the Pavelló de la República CRAI Library of the UB. These two entities are organizing a series of activities this year to commemorate both the anniversary of the original building and the twenty-five years of the current building.
The first guided tour will be on May 28, two days after the anniversary of the bombing of Guernica; the second will take place on 26, the day after the date of the opening of the Paris International Expo, and the last one will be on July 14, two days after the anniversary of the official opening of the Pavilion in 1937. All guided tours will take place at 17 and its price is 6 euros per person (reservations at info@elglobusvermell.org).
Apart from these tours, there are other initiatives, such a website which is currently under construction and which will gather graphic documents about the 1937 pavilion and the reconstructed one during the Olympic Games. At the moment, the history of both pavilions can be read on the new blog post from the Pavelló de la República CRAI Library (in Catalan).
This blog tells how the 1937 pavilion was designed by the Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert, disciple of Le Corbusier. A simple structure and a plain structure contrasted with the magnificence of the German and Russian pavilions. The building was regarded as a empty container, a cube without walls, to exhibit posters, pictures and other artistic and documental elements to show the atrocities of the war. Apart from the Guernika, painted by Picasso on purpose for the occasion, there were other works such as the Mercury Fountain by Alexander Calder, now exhibited in Miró Foundation; the Reaper by Joan Miró, which disappeared when the pavilion was taken down and is still missing, and posters and photomontages by Josep Renau.
The entrance of the pavilion had the 12.5 meter-high sculpture El pueblo español tiene un camino que conduce a una estrella (The Spanish people have a path that leads to a star), by Alberto Sánchez. There were other sculptures such as Montserrat by Julio González, representing a Catalan farmer with her son on her arms, now exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Apart from the art exhibition, the pavilion held cultural activities such as cinema screenings, theatre plays and dance shows. The audiovisual production was taken care of by the filmmaker Luis Buñuel.
At the moment, the rebuilt Pavilion holds one of the most important archive and bibliographic collections in the world on the Second Republic, the Spanish Civil War, the Franco regime, exile and transition in Spain, and in Catalonia in particular.