Luis Martínez Santa-María. I don’t want to change the world. I only want to express it

The competition Fear of Columns is an event we organized with the purpose of publicizing the oeuvre of Mies van der Rohe to all citizens and reflecting on the impact that the Ionic columns by Puig i Cadafalch had on this renowned German architect’s work.

We received 181 proposals to participate in the competition, the jury at their meeting held on March 9 2016 chose as winning proposal the project titled “I don’t want to change the world. I only want to express it” by Luis Martínez Santa-María (Madrid, Spain).

In 1929 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe built the German Pavilion for the International Exhibition of Barcelona between the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc, eight Ionic columns and the Poble Espanyol. In 1986 the reconstruction of the Pavilion opened and now, 30 years later, the eight columns are recreated after an international competition called “Fear of Columns” won by the architect Luis Martínez Santa-María. In the report of the proposal he stated:“the multi-coloured row of columns made with industrial waste drums makes an irony to the threats of the industrial landscape and to the ambiguous and erroneous beauty revealed by it.” Perhaps the great German architect who once said: “I don’t want to change the world. I only want to express it. That’s all I want,” might have liked this ephemeral proposal.

The 8 columns made with industrial waste drums were built and presented to the public on June 1 and were dismounted on October 10, 2016.

Luis Martínez de Santa-María (Madrid, 1960) studied at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid where he is currently Professor of Architectural Projects. He is the author of the books: El árbol, el camino, el estanque ante la casa (2004) (UPM Extraordinary Doctoral Thesis Award), Intersecciones (2005), El libro de los cuartos (2011), Principios (2012), Superposiciones (2018), Contacto (2020) and La expresión del peso (2021), a book also published in English (The expression of weight), as a result of the research carried out during his stay at the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome (2012). Among other awards, he has received the Madrid City Council Architecture Award (1991), the Manuel Oraá y Arcocha Award (1997), the ASCER Award (2005), the Hispalyt Award (2009), the Fritz Höger Silver Award (2014), the FAD Award (2017) and the Luis Moreno Mansilla Award (2017).

I don’t want to change the world. I only want to express it. from Fundacio Mies van der Rohe on Vimeo.