As the world faces an increasingly urgent climate crisis, there is growing pressure for the construction industry to reduce its carbon emissions, prompting a wholesale rethink of the way buildings are developed. As a practice with a longstanding emphasis on sustainability, Dutch architects MVRDV are strongly aligned with the principles of this change. But what does that mean in practice? In Carbon Confessions, a new exhibition in Munich’s Architekturgalerie, MVRDV tells their story from the heart of what Germans call the Bauwende, or construction revolution. The exhibition shows the ideas, ideals, everyday actions – and yes, the missteps and missed opportunities – of their quest for carbon reductions.

Image: © MVRDV

The exhibition occupies three floors of the Blumenstraße high-rise bunker, a structure originally built in 1941 that has been the home of Architekturgalerie München since 2021. Each floor presents a different perspective on MVRDV’s efforts to advance the construction revolution. The middle floor, where the bunker’s main entrance is located, forms the core of the exhibition. On the walls is a 22-chapter storyline of MVRDV’s journey in sustainability, including the office’s early evangelism for density and mobility, its efforts to implement sustainability in its own operations with vegetarian lunches and the creation of The Green Dream Foundation to offset its travel emissions, its missteps in relying too heavily on sustainability consultants, and the foundation of MVRDV NEXT, a combined climate and technology unit within the office that helps to drive the firm’s current focus on carbon.

Image: © Architekturgalerie München

In the centre of this room is a “carousel” of panels – mounted on a circular rail that was loaned from the gallery’s previous exhibition – that provide 22 anecdotes of how a push for low-carbon projects works in practice, from a look into the perverse incentives that cause engineers and other consultants to advise against sustainable solutions to the story of a German builder who proved unexpectedly excited about the potential of rammed earth walls. Accompanying these anecdotes are 12 “carbon cases” showing calculations of the embodied carbon of MVRDV projects using the software CarbonScape – which MVRDV will soon launch for public use. These carbon cases provide transparency into the methodology MVRDV now uses to measure, and more importantly change, the climate impact of its projects.

Image: © MVRDV

“If you think architects create buildings of concrete, wood, steel, and glass, it’s time to think again”, says MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs. “Carbon is the raw material that underpins them all. With this exhibition we hope to convince people of that fundamental reality, while also being honest that it can take some time to fully understand all the implications of this paradigm shift. The sooner the construction industry starts thinking in this way, the sooner we will reach an optimistic, sustainable future.”

Image: © MVRDV

On the second floor, visitors will find a presentation of transformation projects. This emphasises the fact that transforming, rather than of demolishing and replacing, existing buildings is perhaps the most effective single method to reduce the carbon impact of development. The presented transformations include a selection of MVRDV’s projects, both completed and still in progress, as well as student designs generated in Van Rijs’ “Anti-Monument” course in TU Berlin. Also on this floor is a presentation of low-carbon material samples that have been used in, or in some cases specially developed for, MVRDV projects. In the centre of this space is a curtain on a figure-eight-shaped rail. This curtain – which has been reused from MVRDV’s Dutch Pavilion at the Taipei International Book Exhibition – turns this floor into an event space for the exhibition.

Image: © Architekturgalerie München

The ground floor of the bunker presents a series of digital tools that serve as examples of the firm’s “everyday activism”. Software such as RoofScape and CarbonScape help others to design using low-carbon principles, thus amplifying the impact that one office can have. These digital tools are presented in the form of a “video campfire”, with a circular bench – also loaned from the gallery’s previous exhibition. This social arrangement allows people to gather around and discuss the videos on display, hinting at a key ambition of the exhibition: to be a potent conversation starter, bringing together architects, construction industry professionals, and laypeople alike for sometimes-difficult discussions on the urgent topic of construction and carbon.

Jacob van Rijs and Jan Knikker, officially opened the exhibition on 16 January, along with Elisabeth Merk, Planning Director of the City of Munich, and Nicola Borgmann, Director of the Architekturgalerie München; Image: © Architekturgalerie München

Carbon Confessions is on display at the Architekturgalerie München, Blumenstrasse 22, until February 27th, 2025. The development of the software CarbonScape, which forms a key element of the exhibition, has recently been finalised by MVRDV. The tool is currently being tested by an external beta group before it will be launched as a public open platform. The exhibition produced a total of 44 kilograms of CO2. This low number was achieved thanks to the recycling of furnishings from previous exhibitions. The exhibition will not create any waste.