Mass is More: Barcelona Pavillion

Mass is More was a two-week exhibition that explored the use of regenerative and decarbonizing architectural materials, exposing the multi-layered material processes entailed (and impacts incurred) in the production of buildings.  Through the application of emerging principles of the circular bio-economy, the biocity model promotes new design approaches, construction techniques, and urban management methods that can create and reinforce a mutually beneficial relationship between cities and forests. Co-developed by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Bauhaus Earth, this exhibition explores the potential of advanced wood building technology as a means to store atmospheric carbon in the built environment. The exhibit is hosted at the Barcelona Pavilion, the quintessential icon of the modernist era designed by Mies van der Rohe and Lily Reich almost a century ago. It reaffirms a pivotal Spanish-German architectural collaboration and ushers in a new era of ecological construction.   

Adhering to the architectural language of the pavilion, the Mass is More installation created a dialogue between the most advanced materials of the 20th and the 21st centuries. Through a series of elements made of cross laminated timber (CLT) panels from local forests, it demonstrated the structural capabilities of this new materiality and its suitability for constructing more sustainable buildings with a much lower environmental impact.

In addition to the wooden pavilion, the exhibit comprised a 4.8-meter-long diorama showing the path of wood from the forest to the city as a material with carbon-storing properties; an interactive digital application offered a comparison between the environmental impacts of the 1929 Barcelona Pavilion and of the mass timber installation.

To compare both structures fairly, only architectural elements, such as the roof, walls, columns and floor, were considered. The comparative analysis comprised the embodied carbon emissions in every element, as well as the energy utilized, kilometers traveled and steps taken during the different processes of extraction, manufacturing, transportation and assembly. This digital component was accompanied by analogue tags placed on various vertical elements of both pavilions, displaying all materials used for their fabrication. In the same way edible goods are required to disclose their ingredients, this piece offers transparency to architectural practice.

Moreover, visitors enjoyed a video installation showing the material transformations undergone by the wood harvested for the construction of the mass timber structure from a first-person perspective.

This space served as the venue for the launching of Mass Madera, a Spanish mass timber building network promoted by Built by Nature. The installation was produced by Finsa and Xilonor, a Galician timber company. The exhibition incorporated an interactive digital application was developed together with Bestiario. Filmmaker Jaume Cebolla Mass was responsible for the Mass is More Documentary. The exhibition was part of the European Forest City 2022 taking place in Barcelona, organized by the European Forest Institute, with the support of the Metropolitan Area and the Barcelona City Council.

The Mass is More pavillion also served as the location for the presentation of the Barcelona Protocoll, a European action plan by Bauhaus Earth and its partners.