Spain's DRAC pavilion wraps Gaudí-style trencadís over a take-apart timber frame

Design a piece of national cultural infrastructure that shows Spanish industry and craft working as one system — material efficiency, circularity and reuse — rather than reproducing historical Gaudí forms, and that can host events in a foreign garden for six months.

A walk-through dragon descended from Park Güell's trencadís salamander — ceramics over a dry-assembled timber frame that leaves no trace and rebuilds elsewhere.

A 150 m² lightweight modular pavilion in the Cervantes Institute garden in Frankfurt (April 30–October 30): a timber frame with a hybrid skin of more than 16,000 custom ceramic pieces from Natucer, Decocer and Cevica, textile elements modulating light and ventilation, assembled entirely dry with no permanent foundations. Emedec machined the wood; a complementary exhibition and documentary video record the process, from Valencian ceramics to the wooden 'vareta' technique.

Through its six-month run the pavilion doubles as seating, gathering space and scenic platform — an 'artificial topography' reorganising the garden — while an ongoing programme of cultural and professional events builds Spain–Germany collaboration in design, architecture and craft.

For World Design Capital Frankfurt Rhein-Main 2026, ICEX and the Cervantes Institute present 'DRAC: Gaudí and the Inhabited Form', a walk-through sculpture by José Ramón Tramoyeres and Manolo García of ggstudio, standing from April 30 to October 30 in the institute's garden in Frankfurt. The organic form nods to the famous salamander at Park Güell — the 1906 dragon Gaudí shaped from thin brick on a metal mesh and clad in trencadís ceramic fragments — here reinterpreted not as reproduction of historical form but as a contemporary, operational approach.

The 150 m² pavilion is a lightweight modular structure combining Mediterranean material culture with technical innovation: a timber structure wearing a hybrid skin of more than 16,000 ceramic pieces, plus textile elements that modulate light, ventilation and the building's relationship with its surroundings. Every component adapts to the organic logic, from the structural base to a scale-inspired outer skin. As Tramoyeres puts it, the project explores 'how ceramic tradition can be integrated into contemporary systems of prefabrication, digital fabrication, and reversible assembly.'

The reversibility is the point. Assembled dry, without permanent foundations, the structure can be completely dismantled and the site fully restored, designed to undergo multiple life cycles and travel to different locations. A multidisciplinary supply chain backs the demo: Emedec supplies and machines the wood, Francisco Simó Pinturas handles protective systems, Natucer, Decocer and Cevica deliver custom ceramics, Idelightec the lighting, Lastra & Zorrilla the textiles — a showcase of Spain's construction sector as much as of its design.

Inside, inclined planes and inhabitable surfaces introduce an artificial topography to the garden: the installation becomes seating, gathering area and scenic platform, an event venue that activates public space. Aligned with the New European Bauhaus, it hosts an ongoing programme of cultural, professional and business activities that strengthen Spain–Germany dialogue in design, architecture, craftsmanship and the creative industries.

It answers the one pavilion question nobody asks until teardown — what happens to it — by designing the afterlife first: dry assembly, zero foundations, multiple life cycles, full site restoration.

Gaudí's trencadís is re-read as a system (prefabricated thin brick on mesh) rather than a style, then translated into 16,000 digitally fabricated ceramic pieces.

The supply chain is the exhibit: ceramics, timber, textiles and lighting from named Spanish companies make the pavilion a sector showcase, not just a structure.

The inhabitability brief — walk through it, sit on it, hold events on it — keeps a heritage reference from becoming a museum piece.

National pavilions ship prestige then landfill. Make reversibility the brief — dry assembly, no foundations, multiple life cycles — and craft heritage becomes a live demo of circular design.

The pavilion runs April 30 – October 30, 2026 as Spain's contribution to the World Design Capital programme, with a complementary exhibition and process video at the Cervantes Institute documenting its development. It is intended to travel to further locations after dismantling.