Mugak 2023: The estuary as a strategic axis to rebuild, reinhabit and rethink the metropolitan urban space

The project ‘The estuary as a strategic axis to rebuild, rehabilitate and rethink the metropolitan urban space’, presented by Bilbao Metropoli-30, has been selected for the Mugak International Architecture Biennial of the Basque Country. This fourth installment, which will be held in October and November 2023 under the slogan ‘rebuild, reinhabit, rethink’, raises a reflection on these concepts from the current context of urgency and emergency.

The project, coordinated by Bilbao Metropoli-30, brings together the proposals of various local agents and organizations, such as the Bilbao Port Authority, the College of Civil Engineers, Canals and Ports (Caminos Euskadi), Bilbao Exhibition Centre, Itsasmuseum, IED Kunsthal Bilbao, ZAWP, Amiarte and the Bizkaia branch of the Official Basque-Navarrese Association of Architects, among others, and will consist of various activities around the idea of rehabilitating this iconic area of Bilbao. Bilbao Metropoli-30 has proposed the estuary as the backbone of the project due to its strategic nature for the future of our metropolis.

Among the activities, there will be four exhibition and visual interventions: the photographic exhibition ‘Katebegi/link/Eslabón’, by ZAWP, at the Bilbao Exhibition Centre (BEC); ‘Oteiza in Bilbao. 1994. The Immobile City. Ordinance in the Zorrozaurre isle’, by the curators Santos Bregaña and Emilio Varela in the Biscayan delegation of the COAVN; ‘The city we dream’ by AmiArte, tutored by the artist Bego Intxaustegi, in which twenty creators of visual arts from different countries participate; and ‘Skin of light’, in the Itsasmuseum.

There will also be activities for shared and participative reflection on the theme of this Biennial, with the workshop ‘Reconstructing the auxiliary structures along the estuary’, organised by IED Kunsthal; the creation of mobile containers painted as outdoor murals, developed by AmiArte at its venue; as well as the creation of a virtual tour of the estuary through an audiovisual presentation, which will show its past and present and imagine its future, in collaboration with Caminos Euskadi and the Port Authority of Bilbao.

Finally, it will offer a diversity of metropolitan spaces that will contribute to generating multidirectional movements around the estuary as a strategic axis.

Mugak/ Biennial will feature a hundred free activities in its fourth edition