The meeting building: Bizkaia Aretoa
This building is located in one of the most emblematic parts of Bilbao. L-shaped, it opens out onto the estuary and the Guggenheim Museum, right in the centre of Avenida Abandoibarra, between the Padre Arrupe footbridge and Deusto Bridge. It has a building of over 9,000 square meters, spread over six floors.
Nowadays, this building hosts all kind of social, cultural, academic and scientific events. Most of them are organized by the UPV/EHU, but there are also events organized by external organizations. Due to this, Bizkaia Aretoa has become in a reference venue for organizing events in Bilbao.
It is an emblematic building designed by the architect Álvaro Siza, who has given priority to "maintaining the scale of the place, respecting cornices and placing the ground floor at the service of the pedestrian, open and permeable, offering views inside with huge wings that integrate the private space in the public area and vice versa".
It has a mixed structure of wrought steel and concrete and its northern and eastern façades, which will form the main entrance to the building, are set with huge rectangular windows. The façades leading to the library, to Deusto bridge and the Plaza Euskadi are covered whit white marble, which is also found on the stairs and between the grey handmade tiles covering the main wall.
