The Fundació Mies van der Rohe and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute present the publication ‘Nenúfars: Water Lilies in the Barcelona Pavilion’ – a remarkable volume that restores the memory of the natural dimension of one of the most important icons of 20th-century architecture.
Published on Sant Jordi, Catalonia’s celebration of books, the volume expands on and documents the 2022 project ‘Nenúfars Blancs’ – an artistic intervention by the Centrala collective (Małgorzata Kuciewicz and Simone De Iacobis) and curator Aleksandra Kędziorek. Through the project, water lilies returned to the pool of Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Barcelona Pavilion, restoring a forgotten, organic dimension to this modernist space.
The publication forms part of the foundation’s ongoing strategy, in which books are not merely documents, but extensions of artistic interventions. Created in collaboration with architects, artists and researchers, they become tools for reinterpreting the pavilion as a living space – one subject to change, dialogue and the passage of time.
