Internalities
Architectures for Territorial Equilibrium
Spanish Pavilion
Venice Biennale 2025
May 10—Nov 23, 2025
. . .
Commissioned by
- Spanish Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda
Curators
- Roi Salgueiro Barrio
- Manuel Bouzas Barcala
Photographer
Luís Díaz Díaz
Organized by
- General Secretariat of Urban Agenda
- Housing and Architecture of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MIVAU)
- Acción Cultural Española (AC/E)
- Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID)
- Nature does not produce waste.
- Nor does it generate externalities.
- All material flows are internalised within a continuous cycle.
- But what happens when architecture follows the same logic?
- What does it mean to internalise our environmental externalities?
The Spanish Pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale is built around a word that does not exist: Internalities. Through this concept, the exhibition explores how architects can—and must—minimize the environmental externalities associated with production processes in order to advance the decarbonisation of construction. Internalities highlights the work of a new generation of Spanish architecture studios that rigorously and radically examine how to mediate a balance between ecologies and economies. Their work is characterised by the use of local, regenerative, and low-carbon resources. Together, they contribute to a deeper understanding of the regional ecologies of materials such as wood, stone and earth, as well as the forests, quarries and soils from which they are sourced. Their projects forge new territorial equilibriums: agreements between ecologies and economies.
. . .
Research axes
Materials investigates the value chains of natural and regenerative materials along the Cantabrian coast, from forest management to the timber industry.
Energy examines the energy transition and its impact on the landscape, focusing on wind and hydroelectric generation along the Atlantic coast in the northwest of the peninsula.
Labor focuses on the Mediterranean arc, exploring how to recover construction know-how and local craft associated with the use of earth.
Residues explores strategies for recovering, recirculating, and reusing discarded construction materials, with a case study in the central zone—the metropolitan area of Madrid.
Emissions addresses the full carbon cycle of a building throughout its lifespan—from resource extraction to deconstruction—with examples of emission reduction in the Balearic Islands.