SPANISH PAVILION. BOGOTÁ INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR
The Spain Pavilion at FilBo 2025 is conceived as a series of landscapes connected by the movement of mobile libraries. Common in rural areas, these institutions constitute essential infrastructure for universal access to knowledge. Modest in scale and materially austere, they operate outside the logic of economic profit, linking readers in peripheral communities through their circulation. Historically, mobile libraries have played a vital role in both Colombia and Spain, providing access to books for broad segments of the population and often serving as a first point of contact with reading.
The Pavilion understands the mobile library as a form of architecture that links two kinds of knowledge: the written word, inscribed on the pages of books, and orally transmitted craft knowledge, embodied in materials such as handmade felt, macrame, netting, or fique. This dual condition resonates with universal semantic connections between words like text, textile, and tale—coincidences that appear in Latin (textum) as well as in Amerindian languages spoken in Colombia, like Wayúu (süchi).
The visit to the Pavilion unfolds as a sequence of welcome, gathering, and farewell, articulated through different program elements. A large entry plaza introduces visitors to the curatorial proposal. From there, they access a series of spaces: an exhibition of Spanish photobooks; another on historical memory and graphic novels; a 240-seat auditorium; an 80-seat forum; and a large bookstore-reading area. Visitors exit through a second plaza that opens onto a terrace-canteen.
Craft Know-How
The Pavilion’s façade is formed by a monumental macramé tapestry nearly 20 meters tall, created by the Macramé Artisans’ Association of Cogua (Cundinamarca), which was revitalized thanks to this project. Interwoven with climbing vegetation, the tapestry evokes Iberian cliffs and Amazonian tepuis, offering a preview of the textile landscapes found inside. The tapestry folds to form a canopy at the entrance to the Pavilion.
Originating in the Arab world, macramé spread globally from the 8th century onward. As it expanded, it encountered local knotting techniques in nearly every culture. In the 15th century, the Spanish conquest brought macramé to the Americas, where it evolved into new forms through contact with pre-Columbian traditions. On the Pavilion’s façade, macramé becomes text: its knotted cords, sometimes reinforced with metal rods, serve as a base for lettering that welcomes visitors. Transcending its usual classification as decorative art, this textile piece takes on a quasi-infrastructural dimension—its scale and production process challenge the historically marginal status of textiles and their association with women’s labor.
Macramé also appears in the Pavilion’s interior signage, with large woven panels held in place by pots containing native plant species.
The auditorium, forum, and videopoetry spaces are conceived as mountainous forms, made from suspended sheep’s wool felt. This material offers acoustic and visual insulation, adapting the spaces for talks, readings, and concerts. The felt pieces, produced by an artisan community in Sutatausa (Cundinamarca), reference the transformation of textile practices after the arrival of sheep farming in Colombia in the 16th century, when communities such as the Muisca began to replace cotton with wool to make ruanas—traditional sleeveless Colombian ponchos.
To focus attention on the stages, their platforms are covered with fique, a plant fiber native to Colombia commonly used in flooring. The material used here was crafted by artisans from Curití (Santander).
The exhibition areas are enclosed with fishing nets that help control visitor flow without interrupting visual connections to the rest of the Pavilion. Produced in Lorica (Córdoba), these nets reference the cultural importance of fishing in both Colombia and Spain. In Spain, this tradition is rooted in 1,491 kilometers of Mediterranean coastline and 6,409 kilometers of Atlantic coast. In Colombia, beyond its 1,760 kilometers of Caribbean and 1,448 kilometers of Pacific coast, fishing also plays a central role in the lives of riverine communities along the Amazon and other waterways.
Written Knowledge
The central void formed by the peripheral arrangement of all these elements is occupied by the bookstore. A space through which all visitors must pass, it holds around 15,000 volumes distributed among 12 small-scale modules. These stainless steel units are inspired by four historic itinerant rural libraries in Spain. Conceived as a meeting space, the bookstore integrates two types of benches between its shelves, along with a scattering of movable chairs that readers can rearrange freely.
The diversity of handmade textiles throughout the Pavilion contrasts with its stainless steel surfaces, which generate interstitial spaces between the constructed landscapes and the Pavilion’s original architecture. These in-between areas house private entrances, service functions, and storage.
Second Lives
The Pavilion’s embrace of mobile libraries is not an exercise in nostalgia—it is a proposition for the present and the future. In the framework of the Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC, Colombia has launched more than 600 mobile libraries as part of its National Network of Public Libraries. In Spain, 82 bookmobiles currently operate, serving over 10 million people in areas with limited access to cultural infrastructure. This system stands as a sustainable and democratic model for cultural access across national territories.
Nearly all elements of the Pavilion will be reused in cultural initiatives linked to peacebuilding in Colombia. To reduce waste and material loss, the bookstore units, furniture, textiles, and even the Pavilion’s walls have been designed for transport and adaptation in challenging contexts. These components will travel to various parts of the country, extending their lifespan as itinerant institutions supporting emerging reading communities. They will help strengthen public libraries and cultural centers in places such as Gaira (Magdalena), the corregimiento of Colón (Putumayo), and La Modelo prison in Bogotá.
CREDITS
Authors
Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco
Paula Chalkho Rozenblum
Enrique Espinosa Pérez
Santiago Pradilla Hosie
Design Team
Irene Domínguez, Sofía Marcie, Jaime de la Torre
Client: Ministerio de Cultura de España. Dirección General del Libro, del Cómic y de la Lectura Acción Cultural Española (AC/E)
Curator, Spanish Pavilion: Antonio Monegal
Technical Advisor: Yetta Aguado Arnold
Production and Operation of the Pavilion
DIEZ Colombia + Alexander Gümbel, Manuel Villa, Vecinas Chicoteras
Artisans
Manuela Álvarez + Asociación de Artesanos de Cogua (macrame)
Constanza Téllez + Artesanos de Sutatausa (wool)
Cooperativa Ecofibras (fique)
Emilio Doria and Amaury Rodríguez (cast nets)
Edilson Rodríguez and Rusbel Rodríguez (wrought iron)
