Nervión's Riverside Park

The surroundings of the Portu Dock are a great emptiness that shows the traces of its history. It is a blurred place, but of great beauty and with an extraordinary potential that enjoys splendid views over the Nervión estuary from its upper level and a leafy and wild horizontal landscape at its lower level. In its southern part it is crossed diagonally by the surface emergence of the closed box of a railway line that divides the area into two unconnected remains; the first leaves the slope of the hill of Arrontegi to the east, artificially cut, and the second, at the lowest level, leaves a large esplanade situated on the edge of the estuary that in the past housed the installations of the steelworks of the Franco-Belgian Company.

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The project underlines the qualities of both places - upper terrace and lower esplanade - and eliminates the fracture between them with a new topography that links the edge of the estuary with the urban front to the east of Barakaldo. The park thus formalises three strips: [a] the large wooded upper terrace with views over the estuary; [b] a slope covered with wild vegetation that resolves the slope and houses the accesses; and [c] an extensive field with paths that weave between meadows, open to any activity. The field is an open and uncluttered stage where anything can happen - without specialisation or hierarchy - a football match, the adventures of children's games, putting the kites to the wind, a meeting between young people, an afternoon snack, a celebration, a walk, a bike ride or a skate, or simply the contemplation of the unique landscape of the estuary and the dock. And the hillside is, as Gilles Clément suggests, a ‘garden in movement’, free and naturalised. 

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