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Beginning with early Modernism, a major design objective Architects ask, how, then, do we experience the Barcelona
has been to eliminate borders from the built environment: Pavilion positively? The answer is because Ludwig Mies van
window and door frames, transitional spaces, and the der Rohe used biophilic design principles to establish a
distinction between inside and outside. Many practitioners positive connection between the user and the structure.
explicitly state this as their goal. The justification, however, is Those include the natural detail and patterns on the
a confused appeal to political freedom: "removing borders travertine limestone and giant marble slabs, the pools of
frees society," although it achieves nothing of the sort. water on the sides; lots of natural light; and the naturalistic
Nevertheless, linking a design style to powerful ideological statue of a woman set in one of the pools. The casual visitor
slogans has made it seductive and almost impossible to is seduced by the biophilic elements and fails to notice the
criticize. lack of enclosure. People's attention is distracted, so they
Mies's pavilion in Barcelona is an excellent example to don't notice when an essential quality of inhabitable space
understand what happened after Modernism. This iconic has been destroyed
building of the Modernist style built-in 1929 provides no
distinction between inside and outside. An intentional feature
of its design has led to poor results when copied by later
buildings that depend upon enclosing a space (as most
buildings do).
