Metropolitan Bilbao Technical Tour

The technical tour will give an overview of the urban transformation that Bilbao over the last 15 years. Using the Nervión as guide, workshop participants will travel down the estuary and gain an understanding of the singular process behind renaissance of Bilbao. This technical tour is organised with the collaboration of Bilbao Ría 2000.

Bilbao and the Basque Country
The Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco (or the Basque Country) has a surface area of about 7200 km2, contains about 2 million inhabitants. The Metropolitan Area of Bilbao, with its thirty municipalities, contains half the population and economic activity of the Basque Country. Historically, the Metropolitan Area of Bilbao is the industrial motor of the Basque Country. However, industrial development has converted the Nervión Estuary into a great physical and social barrier. The economic model that established this segregation was itself obsolete by the end of the 1970s. In this context, the regional strategy of the Basque Country considered the renovation and rehabilitation of the Nervión Estuary to be the highest economic and urban priority.

The Nervion Esturay as Development Axis
The strategy for the urban regeneration and rehabilitation of Metropolitan Bilbao is based upon the Nervión Estuary as “development axis”. Historically, the estuary and the maritime activities were the lifeline of Metropolitan Bilbao. The opening gambit of the transformative process was to move the Port of Bilbao and its activities to new, modern facilities in “El Abra Exterior”, at the mouth of the estuary. The move was necessary for the port to maintain its competitive edge, but the move also meant that a tremendous amount of publicly-owned lands, many of them brown-fields, became available for redevelopment.
In 1992, Bilbao Ría 2000 (BR2000) was set up to coordinate the redevelopment of these areas. BR2000, a public agency, is leading the urban transformation of Bilbao beginning with the emblematic Abandoibarra projects, as well as significant operations in Ametzola, Barakaldo and Bilbao La Vieja.

More than a Physical Transformation
These projects have affected not only a physical transformation. Basque leaders will explain that the most profound transformation in Bilbao and the Basque Country is the dramatic change of attitude of the Basque society. The feelings of failure and pessimism engendered by economic crises and political conflicts have given way to a collective optimism that it is indeed possible for Bilbao (and other cities) to re-invent themselves for the post-industrial economy.