Wood is the material of tradition. A material which industrial construction relegated to domestic architecture, claddings, and the manufacturing of carpentry. For modern architecture, wood was an organic element first applied by Nordics on the mineral abstraction of glass, steel or concrete. It was an element which was closer to human nature because it was alive and because of its ties to the traditional industry: a material that could be obtained without the interference of fire. Furthermore, it was a material with a long history. Carpentry actually predates History, and perhaps for this reason it had to be rethought to suit modernity, a task which Scandinavian architects took upon themselves to undertake. But in the building of structures, wood gave way to more resistant and more inert materials. Wood was to get back its structural role only with the invention of glues, which in turn made it possible to construct larger structural frameworks. A building such as the Wood Engineering School in Biel – designed by Meili & Peter and built in its entirety in solid wood – is therefore exceptional. It refers to its particular use and has direct kinship to the large-scale timber constructions of 19th century engineers...
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