ALONA MARTINEZ-PEREZ
Architect's Registration Board and
Urban Design Group

Bilbao is located in Northern Spain a post industrial city that went into recession in the late eighties with the need of urban regeneration. The city Council decided to create an effect in Urban Planning that will sell the city’s urban regeneration and increase tourism to improve the local economy which was later called the Bilbao Effect. Bilbao’s case is interesting as defining different typologies of density, as it has got three very distinctive parts, The Old Town, The new Town (The Ensanche by Achucarro 1860) and the new high rise development following the regeneration strategies during the 1990’s.

This paper will look at the socio-economic reasons behind these different typologies and why these typologies have worked or not in the context of the city. The old Town with its narrow streets  and the early garden city examples in the neighbourhoods of Irala and Artxanda to accommodate Bristish mining workers. The New town with the Ensanche following French Haussmanian influence and Cerda’s grid, with its characteristic urban block and the New Bilbao increasing its population and with the geographic limits does not allow for a low density typology to accommodate its needs, so the high-rise seems the obvious answer.

From these three typologies in one city, the author will draw conclusions and compare these typologies in the case of Bilbao, and how this example may be used to other cities at present. Urban Regeneration is the ultimate way of selling a city; this draws back into references such likes to Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard. The city is sold as object of consumption. The different densities are used as recipes in city regeneration throughout the UK and Europe. Is this the right solutions? Can we apply these different typologies without socio-economic and historic requirements of a particular city? This questions and other will offer the opportunity and arena for discussion.