"España fuera de España". The Spanish pavilions architecture at the 1925 and 1937 Paris exhibitions

The Spanish pavilion erected in Paris in 1925 for the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes by the architect Pascual Bravo Sanfeliú did not catch the attention of the international critic. Quite a different attain achieved twelve years later Luis Lacasa and Josep Lluís Sert with the pavilion they designed for the Exposition internationale des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne on the hill of Trocadéro (also because the well know political intents). The first of the two Spanish pavilions was in fact characterized by a formal repertoire coming from the vernacular tradition, that included a wide use of ceramic and ironwork decorative elements, far from the modern architectural language that marked Le Corbusier’s Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau, the pavilion of the Soviet Union designed by Konstantin Mel’nikov or the Pavillon des Renseignements et du Tourisme by Robert Mallet-Stevens. Instead, the second of the two Spanish pavilions was countersigned by modern shapes and materials, resonating with the principles established in the Thirties by the modern European architecture of an international character (as the contemporary Le Corbusier’s works). The present paper will focus on the building of the two Spanish pavilions and on the role they played in the 1925's and 1937's exhibitions. It will also take into consideration the idea of Spanish modernity they tried to convey: the connection between architecture and decorative arts in the case of the 1925's pavilion (as recommended by the organizing committee), and the relationship with an acknowledged modern international style at a formal and technological level, in the case of the 1937's pavilion. Departing from documents preserved in Parisian archives, a special note will be given to the reception of the two pavilions by the contemporary French critic and to their appreciation in the context of the modern international architecture, thus to understand how the image of the Spanish architecture changed in Paris in a decade or so more.