The Pavelló Alemany de Barcelona, representative of the Modern Movement in architecture, was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich as Germany’s national pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition. Built with glass, steel and several types of marble, the Pavilion was intended to play host to an official reception with the German authorities presided over by King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenie.

The Pavilion was dismantled in 1930, following the end of the Exposition. Over time, it has come to be considered a milestone both in Mies van der Rohe’s career and in the history of 20th-century architecture. In 1980, Oriol Bohigas at the Barcelona City Council Office for Urban Planning initiated a project to rebuild the pavilion, with Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Cristian Cirici and Fernando Ramos as the architects chosen to carry out the research, draw up the design and supervise the work. Reconstruction work began in 1983 and the new building was officially opened in 1986 on the original site.