Thomas Mann, Mies van der Rohe and Lúa Coderch The mystery of the wall at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Montjuïc 

If you go to Montjuïc, opposite the monumental fountain you’ll find the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, created by this architect and the Bauhaus designer Lilly Reich. An emblematic building of architectural rationalism, it pivoted around an internal wall made of golden onyx from the Atlas Mountains. If you go to MACBA, in the current exhibition of the Collection you will find a replica of this wall, life-size and with exactly the same patterns and tonalities, but made of inflatable plastic. The work is by Lúa Coderch, an artist whose interest lies in exposing the impostures upon which modern cities are built. In this case, Barcelona and Montjuïc with its magic mountain. Neither wall is the original, they are both replicas. So, what is their secret? Lúa Coderch first presented International Style (Onyx Wall) at the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, in 2014, in the context of the exhibition The Magic Mountain. A title that pays tribute to Thomas Mann’s great novel about the nature of time. What is Thomas Mann doing in Montjuïc? What is this story all about?