The key event for building relationships

At Bau, a biannual get-together in Munich for builders, architects and developers, you will find Bavarian brickies in journeyman cords, a crowd applauding a remote-opening double-glazed window and an Oktoberfest-like atmosphere where steins of beer are emptied among sanitaryware and an occasional outburst of Schlager on the sound system.

With hangar-sized conference halls dedicated to aluminium, glass and ceramics, Bau digs deep into the nuts and bolts of the build- ing industry. But it’s more than a sum of its parts; it’s also a sense check for where the sector is heading and who has smart ideas, as told by the people who make the structures that we live with. “Beautiful shutters, better life” is one prominent brand’s slogan.

“Resources, and how to reuse them, is the big topic this year,” says Mario Lenzen, a German salesman from Kellerer zmk. He’s standing beside the company’s patented product: a pile of bricks stuffed with tiny pellets of repurposed polystyrene for a bit more insulation and a bit less expenditure.

Ideas and inspirations abound. There’s Berlin-based Ecolocked, which mixes cap- tured carbon into cement, and Alicante-based architectural ceramics firm Tempio affixing elegant, glazed façades to major projects around the world. “Germany is in a difficult economic position, France as well,” says Carmen Molina, export manager at Cerámica Mayor. “But Spain is booming.”

It’s similar to the sentiment among the woodworkers of Eastern Europe. Slovpol Wood is doing a solid trade with its tactile slabs of Polish oak made in the village of Pietrowice Wielkie, while Estonian firm Arcwood is carving out a niche: its beams of cross-laminated timber – all sourced from forests around the Baltics – artfully bend into triumphant archways.

While the economic travails of Bau’s host nation were never too far from exhibitors’ minds, the trade show is also a reminder of the engineering heft that Germany still commands in construction, with a backbone of Mittelstand family-run firms. Sommer, makers of bulletproof glass, debuted its first curved façade complete with an assault rifle and accompanying bullets to show how much firepower it can withstand. Over at the booth of Schmitt + Sohn Elevators, the sixth-generation of the family Schmitt is on hand to explain how the business is on the up. “The elevator is the most secure transportation vehicle in the world,” says Roland von Hinüber, who married into the Schmitts. “If you feel quality metal by pushing a real button or touching walls that are not plastic, it is reassuring.” Now that’s an elevator pitch. — L
bau-muenchen.com