Building Desire

This monograph publication accompanies Cibic’s film The Pavilion (2015) within the context of the exhibition Building Desire, bringing together the research, archival material, and conceptual frameworks that underpin the work.

Centred on the lost Pavilion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia at the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition, the publication traces the building’s emergence, disappearance, and partial reconstruction through fragmentary documentation. Designed by Dragiša Brašovan, the pavilion embodied a moment in which modernist architecture was mobilised to project a new national identity on the international stage. Its subsequent erasure from dominant narratives of architectural history becomes a key point of inquiry.

Through visual studies, script development, and comparative analysis, the monograph reveals how architecture functions as an instrument of cultural diplomacy and ideological display. It situates The Pavilion within Cibic’s broader investigation into the staging of the nation, examining how aesthetic strategies—from ornament and façade to exhibition design—operate as tools of persuasion and desire.

Extending beyond documentation, the publication reflects on processes of reconstruction, substitution, and speculation. By inserting alternative references—ranging from modernist architectural projects to systems of visual deception—Cibic reimagines the pavilion as both historical artefact and contemporary proposition. The monograph thus frames artistic practice as a method of re-historicisation, opening space for reconsidering the role of the periphery within the canon of modernism and the politics of its representation.