Inside a display case in this room, you can see a scale model of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris.
The Spanish Pavilion was the work of architects Luis Lacasa and Josep Luis Sert, who were members of the GATEPAC movement. It was an unpretentious building that employed Avant-garde volumes, modern materials and plenty of natural light, and it was highly versatile for exhibition purposes, with sliding panels, ramps and staircases.
To complement Guernica, which was on display inside the Pavilion at the entrance - as was Alexander Calder’s Mercury Fountain which we will look at later - there stood a twelve- metre- high statue by Alberto Sánchez, entitled The Spanish People Have a Path that Leads to a Star, a copy of which can be seen in the square outside the entrance to this museum.
The Spanish Pavilion became an effective showcase for a nation that was forced to fight for survival. Works by well-known intellectuals such as the painter Joan Miró, who exhibited an impressive mural which no longer exists, or the poet García Lorca, who had only recently been murdered, were also part of the exhibition.
To find the place where Guernica was on display, take a look at the ground floor of the model. In tune with the spirit of the Exhibition, the second floor was devoted to popular arts and crafts, so that the whole building celebrated artistic expression as a facet of individual and democratic freedom of expression.
The Pavilion was dismantled after the Second World War. Since 1992, a faithful reconstruction of it has stood in Barcelona.
(c) (R) 2012, MUSMon com S.L.
The Reina Sofia MUSMon.com audioguide makes a better visit to the "Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia" (MNCARS). It is an independent production from the museum. It offers 67 minutes of two voices narrations with 43 explanations of works, authors and artistic trends.
It comes with 65 photographs, and museum plans. It also includes the full text transcriptions of voiceover, technical data and several organized itineraries. +info