Chapter 2 of 24
Plan Of City. Left: With The Site As Found. Right: With The Proposed Bus-Railway Station Shown
So we spent 3 months analysing the brief, analysing the site. And. interestingly enough, when
we visited the site which was given to us, it was presently occupied by railway lands very
near the central station in Bilbao, but a site which is essentially industrial. right in the middle of
the city, it does nothing at all for- the social and economic life, it's a kind of hangover of the 19th
century development of the station.
The site was given to us, we met with the railway authorities and we were surprised to learn
that the railway authorities did not know that the city planned to put a bus station on their land.
But the railway company, to their credit, could see the benefit of this development and, after a
couple of weeks consideration, came back to us and said "look, if you're going to build a bus
station on that land, we think it would be a good idea to combine it with plans that we've got to
build a new railway station." So suddenly the project doubled in size. from a bus station to a
combination of a bus station and a railway station.
And so the authority decided that the vested interests. the numerous interests should form a
sort of consortium to act as our client.