Bilbao, which transformed itself over a decade ago with the opening of a striking branch of the Guggenheim museum, on Tuesday inaugurated an imposing new cultural centre by French designer Philippe Starck.
One of the most representative buildings in the centre of Bilbao re-emerges for all after a long process of transformation: la Alhóndiga, the wine warehouse designed by Ricardo Bastida in 1909. Now, AlhóndigaBilbao is a place brimming with activities for everyone, with the aim of becoming a new driving force behind cultural and leisure pastimes.
In 1905, the very young architect Ricardo Bastida was given the task of building a new corn exchange on the outskirts of the city. He created a big industrial, functional and innovative building which was used as a warehouse for wines, liquors and other spirits. Designed in a modernist style, it was built with reinforced concrete and brick and finished in 1909. From the 70’s onwards its business was moved to a new store located on Recalde Street and the building remained empty, awaiting another use.
The old and modernist wine warehouse, declared “Public Property of Cultural Interest” by the Basque Government in 1999, celebrates one hundred years since the restoration of facades and the interior transformation, which includes the creation of new areas under the supervision of French designer Philippe Starck.
Alhóndiga Bilbao is a part of Philippe Starck’s soul that will remain in the city. Starck is an imaginative and tireless artist, a great creator of ideas. When he visited Bilbao he fell in love at first sight with the city and the Alhóndiga Project and started to work on it immediately after. As a result of this connection, a new, unprecedented urban area flowered up containing the author’s unique hallmark of all his works. His challenge was to humanise the building and transform it into a new focal point in the daily life of Bilbao’s residents.
The Alhondiga Bilbao includes a library, swimming pool, exhibition hall, fitness centre, restaurants and movie theatres spread over 43,000 square metres (462,680 square feet) on the site of this converted wine warehouse.
It took eight years to build for a cost of 75 million euros (92.5 million dollars).
Bilbao mayor Inaki Azkuna said the project aimed to give the city a new “social and cultural motor that is unique in the world.”
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