From the Pavilion to Bilbao
Mies van der Rohe’s pavilion of 1929 and the Republic’s pavilion in Paris in 1937 showed a modern Spain. After Franco’s death came a new wave of public building, and Bilbao gave its name to a whole era.
The Barcelona Pavilion was demolished after the World’s Fair of 1929 but rebuilt on the same site in 1986. Josep Lluís Sert designed the Republic’s pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair of 1937, where Picasso’s Guernica was shown.
After 1975 Spain built museums, stations and sports facilities, not least for the Barcelona Olympics of 1992. Rafael Moneo, who received the Pritzker Prize in 1996, designed the museum of Roman art in Mérida, and Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, opened in 1997, turned an industrial city into a tourist destination.