Bilbao Citichat 31 May 2002

CITICHAT 21/2002 - 31 MAY 2002


Places and spaces 1 – Johannesburg to Bilbao.

“Buildings can have meanings – important buildings are symbols – buildings can reflect values – there is something incredibly important about public spaces – whatever the future for downtown in the 21st century, if it is to be an important place it must remain a valuable place….. And on some level a valuable place must reflect values. We have un-valued our built environment and by doing so we have devalued our buildings,,,,,,, All too often we have lost the intellectual and emotional connection between the buildings and the activities within.”

Just some of the messages going through my mind from a paper by Donovan Rypkema of Place Economics, Washington DC whilst attending a critical meeting held last week between the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), various local heritage organisations and the Executive Mayor, senior councillors and officials.

We were trying to find a joint solution to the dichotomy we face in the city. Heritage and other buildings abandoned by the private sector and now illegally occupied as residential accommodation but constituting a danger to the occupants or a serious blot on the urban fabric. Heritage buildings owned by the public sector and falling into “demolition by neglect”. A lack of funding, a lack of suitable housing and, in the opinion of some around the table, a lack of interest in preserving a heritage that may be repugnant to many. In the end, a three-pronged strategy was agreed. To jointly decide on the fate of those buildings already identified by the council for possible demolition; an analysis of what constitutes the heritage buildings within the inner city that must be preserved and the development of a long term heritage strategy for the city. We are making progress!

A university post-graduate class reunion in Europe provided an opportunity for me to visit Bilbao and Barcelona two cities that offer practical reinforcement for the sentiments expressed by Donovan Rypkema. Both are cities, on different scales, that abound with wonderful spaces and places, and with buildings that reflect the cultures and values of the regions in which they are located. Spain’s Basque Country and the province of Catalonia.

Bilbao is increasingly known as ‘Europe’s Renaissance City’. An old city founded in the 1300’s, it was initially Spain’s major northern port for agricultural exports but much later became an industrial and mining centre. Its coal mining and steel manufacturing led in turn to shipbuilding although it also started to develop as an important banking centre for the region. By the 1960s its heavy steel industries and its shipbuilding, as in so many cities, had come to an end and its riverfront became nothing more than a rust belt. Between 1950 and 1975, many of the city’s wealthy abandoned their homes and left the decay as well as fleeing from the revolutionary underground Basque movement, ETA. For the next fifteen years the city stagnated and, by the 1990’s, the city, with its rusting shipyards and steelworks, was considered one of the least attractive in the Basque country.

The story then goes that the Guggenheim director, Thomas Krens, was looking for the perfect siting for a new major European museum. Having not found anything suitable in Europe’s major cities, he half-heartedly accepted an invitation to visit Bilbao. On an early morning jog he found himself running through the abandoned riverside site of the city’s now extinct major steel mill. He recognised the potential and that “the site, at the heart of Bilbao’s traditional steel and shipping port, was a perfect place for Bilbao’s macro re-conversion from steel to titanium, from heavy industry to art, as well as a nexus between the early 14th century “old city” and the 19th century “new city” and between the wealthy Right Bank and the working class Left Bank”. The Basque provincial government and the Bilbao local government seized the opportunity to inject new confidence and hope into the deteriorating city. American architect Frank Gehry was engaged and as the saying goes, ‘the rest is history!’

My guide book enthuses; “Time in Bilbao may soon need to be identified as BG or AG (Before Guggenheim, After Guggenheim). Never has a single monument of art and architecture so radically changed a city…….Never in the annals of urban renewal has a city, in one masterstroke, so comprehensively reinvented itself.”

Guidebooks aside, what is the reality? In its first year the Guggenheim attracted 1,4 million visitors, three times the number expected and more than both New York Guggenheims together over the same period. The building has eclipsed Madrid’s Prado Museum as the most visited in Spain. The building, described as “Frank Gehry’s gleaming titanium whale hovering alongside the estuary of the Nervion river” is quite remarkable and does all that it set out to do in regard to connecting Right Bank/Left Bank, old city/new city. I thought that this ‘connectivity’ and the way the building relates to the river and the city to be quite extraordinary given the difficulties that the site offered. Its construction has also stimulated a massive cleaning up of the smokestack river frontage, New riverside parks and public spaces are under construction and, in comparison with ‘before’ photographs, the riverside has been transformed. The influx of tourists has resulted in the whole city being spruced up, new industries, particularly tourist related, being created and old businesses revived.

But, at the end of the day, one must also understand that the underlying values, the symbols of the city in terms of spaces and places were already there, just waiting for an excuse to be re-discovered. The 700 year old ‘old city’, Casco Viejo, is a jumble of narrow alleys edged with memorable buildings, squares, courtyards and churches that reflect its heritage and history. The ‘new city’, the 19th century “Ensanche” has wide tree lined boulevards, much retail with apartments over, and, again, many squares and parks. The Nervion river which separates the two is rapidly emerging from its grimy industrial past as a major attraction and venue for new structures such as the glass Santiago Clatrava ‘Puente de Zubi-Zuri’ footbridge. The city has a large investment in its retained classical buildings from the Belle Epoque style City Hall and Arriago Theatre to its more modern music and convention centre and the huge triple storey market building with its stained glass windows and the abundance of basilicas, library buildings, theatres, churches, etc.

The Guggenheim was the key, the catalyst, to the city rediscovering itself. We, in Johannesburg, lack such a rich urban infrastructure and we must not allow more of our built history and heritage to be destroyed.

My one niggle about the Guggenheim, however, is not related to its catalystic ability, that is already more than evident, but relates to the issue of the building versus the art it houses. Whilst one is earnestly told that Frank Gehry’s creation is ultimately only a showcase for the modern art that it contains, what everyone comes to see and what everyone seems to remember most is the building. The generally excellent art that it contains would seem to be overshadowed by the building that houses it. Unlike the Prado and the Louvre and even the new Tate Modern, the building seems to be perceived as the more memorable art form. Maybe that is all that this Postmodern society wants to see!

Regards, neil.