Mass is More: The Barcelona Pavilion

Mass is More was a spatial installation exploring the use of regenerative and decarbonising architectural materials. It was hosted within one of the most iconic works of the modernist era: the Barcelona Pavilion, designed nearly a century ago by Mies van der Rohe and Lily Reich.

The installation revealed the multi-layered material processes involved in building construction, along with the environmental impacts they entail. Drawing on emerging principles of the circular bioeconomy, the biocity model proposed new design approaches, construction techniques, and urban management strategies capable of fostering a mutually beneficial relationship between cities and forests.

Co-developed by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) and Bauhaus Earth, Mass is More investigated the potential of advanced timber construction technologies to sequester atmospheric carbon within the built environment. Situated within the Barcelona Pavilion, the project also reaffirmed a historic Spanish–German architectural dialogue while signalling a new era of ecological construction.

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Adhering to the architectural language of the pavilion, Mass is More 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 material and its suitability for sustainable buildings with a much lower environmental impact.

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

To ensure a fair comparison between the two structures, only architectural components, such as the roof, walls, columns, and floors, were considered. The comparative analysis accounted for the embodied carbon emissions of each element, as well as the energy consumed, distances travelled, and processes involved across extraction, manufacturing, transportation, and assembly.

This digital analysis was complemented by analogue tags affixed to various vertical elements of both pavilions, listing all materials used in their fabrication. Much like food products that are required to disclose their ingredients, this approach introduces a level of transparency to architectural practice and inhabitation.

The visitors of Mass is More also encountered a video installation presenting the material journey of the timber used in the mass-timber structure, narrated from a first-person perspective—from forest harvesting to construction.

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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.

At Mass is More Bauhaus Earth and its partners presented and launched their Barcelona Protocol, a European Action Plan for the CITY and the EARTH.