ABSTRACT

The city of Bilbao is currently enjoying a greatly enhanced urban image since the Guggenheim Museum opened a few years ago. However, the metropolitan area of the city has been undergoing an urban transformation less heralded but no less dramatic. The roots of this transformation lie in the reconceptualization of the entire Basque Country as a European “city-region,” as outlined in the Basque regional strategy developed in the 1990s. The Nervión River, at the heart of the metropolitan area, instead of remaining a physical and social barrier, will become the axis of urban redevelopment for the city-region seeking to face the challenges of the new millennium.