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a installation begins to glow with the setting of the sun. The simplicity of the lines of the Mies van der Rohe pavilion, already in darkness, are perpetuated in beams of red light. They appear and disappear creating unforeseen structures, but of impeccable geometry. The artistic project Luftwerk, composed by Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero, together with Iker Gil and the musician Oriol Tarragó, enables an experience that is referred to as "immersive". The term suggests entering a different element, points to a type of experience of space that contrasts with the usual. And, indeed, what the visitor feels upon entering the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion is hardly comparable to any other spatial experience.
The color red brings warmth to the mathematical purity of the lines. They delineate structures that do not exist with the perfection they appear to have, being cartesianly thinkable, only, without a doubt. The physical phenomenon, the light that moves in perfect linearity, arouses the belief in its architectural materialization while the pure forms, entirely mental, are intuited as real. Although for a very brief period. For they disappear, they go on to form other possible habitations within the building, the pavilion, a world reference for its abstract neatness. A strictly rational game, which nevertheless owes everything to the senses. The music of Oriol Tarragó (sound designer who has won, among other awards, four Goyas), imprints a voracious and industrial rhythm, preventing the ecstatic contemplation of the geometries.
The physical phenomenon, the light that moves in perfect linearity, arouses the belief in its architectural materialization. The pure forms, entirely mental, are intuited as real. Although for a very brief period, for they disappear.The admiration for what is seen is altered at every instant by ceasing to be and finding itself different -with the same rigor- in another place. Space is cut out, artificially delimited by the chimerical straight line, which seeks to create environments. But in its noble pretension, architecture is not only pragmatic, it combines the shelter from potentially harmful elements with the conception of a space for life: the experience of an interior in which interiorities are found, in which the best conditions must be given for human activities to unfold. A classic like Bruno Zevi has recalled with valuable and diverse examples the true role of architecture, always emphasizing the creation of spaces.
INTERIOR SPACE AND THE EXPERIENCE OF THE OPEN/CLOSED
The installation Geometry of Light enhances the experience of space. As a self-reflection on the architectural experience, it actually continues the path of Mies van der Rohe. The reduction to a minimum or the maximization of simplicity, up to the valuation of proportion in the intangible: "In architecture, the question of proportion does not always refer to that of the objects themselves, but, often, to the proportion between objects. There is nothing, but still there is a proportion." Curved lines appear only in the falsely geometric drawings of the fanciful onyx wall and travertine marble, as well as in Georg Kolbe's sculpture, located in the "interior" pond. Also in the red curtain and, as an accessory, in the comfortable and much-imitated Barcelona chairs. The creation of a closed/open space, unthinkable in the late twenties -squaring the circle, housing human activities and at the same time opening up to the experience of the surroundings- is suggested through technology and music 90 years later.
Like Hegel, Mies van der Rohe believed that each architecture reflected the essence of its time. The intervention by Luftwerk and Iker Gil confronts the visitor with the reality of the architectural mirage, by delimiting or delineating habitats that do not exist, that constantly change place—creating other possible places—and fluctuate between materiality and abstraction. The freedom in the experimentation of spaces seems, through Geometry of Light, to make the leap to a digital openness, attractive but always elusive. Faced with the absolute closure of certain architectural forms, an experimentation of space occurs here that closes nothing completely, projecting all possibilities in a dreamed free circulation, that of architecture without walls. Symptomatically, it can only be seen in the absence of daylight.
To the simplicity of Mies van der Rohe, the light installation brings a kind of frenetic reverie, animated by music, which alternates with the rationality of planes and grids.Every experience of space is already an aesthetic experience. In its Logic of the LimitEugenio Trías spoke of the subliminal affection of architecture. The immediacy with which it conditions the mood, barely conscious in the involved, is due to undoubtedly objectifiable mechanisms. But as happens with music, that other art with which it has been associated -both for the importance of number, of regularity, and for the pre-conscious character of its incidence-, there is no way to feel what the other feels, nor therefore to express it. To the simplicity of Mies van der Rohe, the lighting installation brings a kind of frenetic reverie, animated by music, which alternates with the rationality of planes and grids. In its changing projection, it would seem to even enable non-existent experiences, yet to be lived.