MADRID.- The Spanish Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia - will present Internalities: Architectures for Territorial Equilibrium, a project curated by the architects Roi Salgueiro and Manuel Bouzas that explores how architecture can reduce the environmental externalities associated with production processes to move towards the decarbonisation of architecture in Spain.
Internalities is the project selected through an open call to represent Spain, and which responds to the proposal of the curator of this edition of the Biennale, Carlo Ratti. Under the theme Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective, Ratti's proposal seeks to highlight the different intelligences being developed to combat the climate crisis.
In this sense, the Spanish pavilion explores possible solutions through the analysis of how architecture can overcome the externalisation model and contribute to the country's decarbonisation through the use of local and regenerative materials and their reconnection to the landscapes from which they originate.
“Internalities analyses in what ways, to what extent, at what costs, through which buildings, cities and territories, Spanish architecture is leaving behind the economies of externalisation,” say Roi Salgueiro and Manuel Bouzas. The project also highlights the work of a new generation of Spanish architects who rigorously and radically examine how architecture can mediate the balance between ecologies and economies.
The exhibition is sponsored by the Government of Spain, through the General Secretariat for Urban Agenda, Housing, and Architecture of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda (MIVAU), in collaboration with Spanish Cultural Action (Acción Cultural Española - AC/E) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). The project is also officially sponsored by Spanish wood brand FINSA.
Internalities: a new concept
The Spanish pavilion proposed by Roi Salgueiro and Manuel Bouzas is built around a word that does not exist: Internalities. The simplest way to define the idea of "Internality" is in contrast to "Externality", which is a well-established concept in disciplines such as economics and ecology.
The term "Externality" was coined by the British economist Arthur Pigou in 1920 to describe the “indirect costs affecting people and territories that are unrelated to the production of a product.” According to this definition, externalities are the set of unquantified repercussions, by-products, residues, emissions, and waste that underlie routine production processes. One such process is construction, which is responsible for 37% of global CO2 emissions.
“Construction generates externalities when we extract materials, burn energy, displace local trades, produce waste, and generate emissions. Externalities thus cause a serious imbalance between the buildings we construct and the territories they affect," affirm the curators. Combined, they constitute the central cause of the environmental crisis that Carlo Ratti intends to address at this biennial.
In this sense, Internalities proposes an architecture that responds to environmental externalities with the aim of reversing them. Through various proposals, the project seeks to explore how architects can aspire to not depend on the intercontinental flow of resources, but rather to be able to internally balance the relationships between ecologies and economies.
Five axes of research
Through projects, research, and photography, the pavilion examines the use of local, regenerative, and low-carbon resources. As a whole, the project questions how to reduce the emissions associated with the extraction, manufacturing, distribution, installation, and deconstruction of the architectures we inhabit. The exhibition delves into the regional ecologies of resources such as wood, stone, and earth, as well as the forests, quarries, and soils from which they originate.
The exhibition is structured around five axes of internality for the decarbonisation of architecture in Spain: Materials, Energy, Labor, Residues, and Emissions. Each axis has been addressed by a team of local architects and photographers who have studied a specific territory and resource in Spain.
• The first axis, "Materials", analyses the value chains of natural and regenerative materials on the Cantabrian coast, from forestry practices to the wood industry. The research was conducted by Daniel Ibáñez and Carla Ferrer along with photographer María Azkarate.
• The second, "Energy", examines the energy transition and its landscape implications, focusing on wind and hydroelectric power generation on the northwest Atlantic coast. This research was performed by Estar, formed by Aurora Armental and Stefano Ciurlo, together with photographer Luis Díaz Díaz.
• The third, "Labor", investigates how to de-escalate dependence on global technologies to recover local construction intelligence associated with land use in the Mediterranean region. In this case, Anna and Eugeni Bach led the research alongside photographer Caterina Barjau.
• The fourth, "Residues", explores strategies for recovering, recycling, and reusing discarded materials in construction, with a case study in the Madrid metropolitan area. Lucas Muñoz led the research, while Ana Amado was in charge of the photography.
• And the final axis, "Emissions", addresses the complete CO2 cycle throughout a building's lifespan, from extraction to demolition, with examples of emissions reduction in the Balearic Islands. This research was led by Carles Oliver and David Mayol, along with photographer Milena Villalba.
The exhibition
The exhibition will consist of a central hall serving as an introduction and will bring together the 16 architectural projects selected through a call for entries. These architectural and landscape works in Spain, created by different studios, will be presented alongside 32 models and demonstrate the diversity of architectural approaches being developed throughout the country to balance ecologies and economies.
This overview is completed by the five side halls that will present the results of the research topics addressed by the teams of researchers and architects to analyse the decarbonisation of architecture in Spain: Materials, Energy, Trades, Waste, and Emissions. Thus, the side halls will complete the pavilion’s narrative, highlighting the alternatives being considered in Spain to address the issues at hand.
Furthermore, the exhibition will be built entirely with the materials featured in the show, with a prominent role for wood from communal forests in Galicia, thanks to the sponsorship of the lumber company FINSA.
The exhibition will also feature a public programme consisting of talks and seminars. The latter are being held at institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) School of Architecture and the Cornell University School of Architecture. Coinciding with the opening in Venice, a public programme will be held on May 10th, featuring participants in the exhibition's research galleries (Materials, Energy, Labor, Residues, Emissions).
To fuel interest until the inauguration of the Bienniale, a teaser and website (www.internalities.eu) have been launched presenting a preview of the project and information on all its latest developments, as well as the public programme that will accompany the exhibition.
A map of Spain is also provided bringing together the landscapes and resources analysed in the exhibition. Conceived as a collective and open-access tool for all citizens, this mapping transcends political boundaries to reveal the Iberian Peninsula as a key productive ecosystem in the country's decarbonisation process.
Roi Salgueiro is an architect and urban planner, with a PhD summa cum laude from UPC (Polytechnic University of Catalonia) and a Master's in Design Studies with honours from Harvard GSD. He is a professor in the Department of Architecture at MIT, where he is also curatorial director of the Morningside Academy for Design. He is currently the curator of Internalities, the Spanish Pavilion at the 19th Venice Biennale 2025, and editor of the magazine Obradoiro, published by the Official College of Architects of Galicia.
Manuel Bouzas is an architect, researcher and teacher. He lives between Galicia and New York, where he teaches at Cornell AAP. He graduated with honours from ETSAM (UPM) and obtained a Master's in Design Studies from Harvard GSD. He is currently the curator of Internalities, the Spanish Pavilion at the 19th Venice Biennale 2025, and editor of the magazine Obradoiro, published by the Official College of Architects of Galicia. He was recently awarded the 2025 Princess of Girona Art Award.
