An artistic intervention opens today, November 12, 2026, at the Barcelona Pavilion. A modernist icon, the building was designed by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain, to represent modern Germany after World War I. The building was originally designed to be temporary and is now managed by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, created in 1983 by the Barcelona City Council to reconstruct it. Since its rebuilding, the pavilion has been open to visitors as an architectural landmark and is occasionally used as a venue for interventions by visual artists and short-term exhibitions. From November 12 to 22, 2026, "Pavilion-Labyrinth" by Ciro Najle and Josep Ferrando will lead visitors into a labyrinth made entirely of glass, transforming the perceived boundaries between the interior and exterior of the historic building.
The purpose of introducing artistic interventions in the Barcelona Pavilion is to emphasize its contemporary relevance through proposals designed by practitioners from diverse cultural disciplines. "Pavilion-Labyrinth" is a glass installation over the pavilion's travertine podium, forming a transparent labyrinth. The curatorial proposal aims to highlight the original transparent quality of the design, creating a tension with what the organizers call "transparency as an unsettling boundary." The labyrinth introduces shifting reflections and overlapping transparencies and aims to "redefine transparency not as neutrality, but as a dense, living, and profoundly contemporary condition." Visitors are guided through the pavilion's floor plan, in an invitation to perceive spatial boundaries in a new way.
Barcelona-born architect Josep Ferrando is dedicated to craftsmanship and to academic and cultural management projects. He takes a multifaceted approach to architecture and has worked in international academia since 1998. Among other roles and schools, he has led a new curriculum for La Salle Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSALS) based on learning by doing and personalized teaching. He founded his studio, Josep Ferrando Architecture, in 2003 and has since developed a methodology centered on monomateriality, geometry and efficiency. His work has been exhibited in numerous countries and has been the subject of monographic shows at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Architekturforum Aedes in Berlin and the Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) in Rio de Janeiro. In 2016 he took part in the Spanish Pavilion's exhibition at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, which was awarded the Golden Lion.
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Rediscovering the Barcelona Pavilion Through its Material Innovations: Steel, Glass and MarbleArgentine architect Ciro Najle is also known for his academic career at international schools. In Buenos Aires, he also runs General Design Bureau, an architecture, design and research practice, and Campo Marzio, a contemporary art and architecture space. His professional and theoretical work has been published and awarded internationally. The focus of his production, which includes architectural projects, theoretical writing, academic work, and research, is to address the potential of digital culture, ecological thinking and complexity theory in architecture as convergent matters in the era of globalization. The aim of his practice is to develop design methodologies and theoretical frameworks that anticipate the transformations and disciplinary challenges these issues bring to material culture and architectural models.
Other recent initiatives crossing art and architecture include Building the Existing City, an exhibition by CHYBÍK + KRIŠTOF at Aedes Architecture Forum in Berlin that transforms the gallery into a working architecture studio. Between Accra and New York, Art Omi and Limbo Museum have presented Limbo Engawa, a two-part site-specific installation by TAELON7 that uses a modular architectural system to explore how spaces for gathering and exchange can respond to different landscapes, climates and cultural contexts. Beyond construction, Boris Bertram's documentary The Human Shelter: Expedition into What Makes a Home explores the feeling of home through portraits, stories and shelters across four continents.
