The new general deputy of Bizkaia, Elixabete Etxanobe, insists on the project to build a Guggenheim Museum in the Urdaibai reserve, an initiative that had her predecessor, Unai Rementeria, as its greatest supporter. The head of the provincial institution, who took office in July, has committed this Wednesday to designing in this legislature a project for the Guggenheim that “unifies art with nature”, although with the “red line” of not “ undermine” this protected environment.
Etxanobe thus insists on his willingness to move forward with this project, which has been highly questioned due to its impact on a protected and very sensitive natural area, as he had been pointing out since the electoral campaign. Then, on the eve of the municipal and regional elections in May, he indicated that the project will be done “yes or yes.”
Subsequently, the Provincial Council has included this project within the Bizkaia Denontzat legislative plan, which includes 120 actions for the next four years. This Wednesday, in an interview on Radio Euskadi, Etxanobe explained his position regarding the project, much more nuanced than in the campaign.
Etxanobe has indicated that the challenge for this legislature is “to define a project that aims to unite art with nature”, and, in this sense, he has assured that the Bizkaia Provincial Council “is not going to take any step that means that this new museum that is being planned at this very moment, or that has been in the works for all these years, is going to entail any detriment to the environment in which it has to be located, which is the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve. “That is a red line that this Provincial Council is not going to cross,” he indicated.
On the other hand, Elixabete Etxanobe has warned that in the Urdaibai region there are actions that are “very important from an environmental point of view”, such as the recovery of soils contaminated by the industry that no longer exists, that “even if the museum were not built it would be good to do them, because it also involves the recovery and delivery to the citizens of those lands and spaces that are currently not in good condition.”
Furthermore, he said that they are not talking about “just placing, as if it were a UFO that falls there, the great museum of Bilbao”, but rather that he has committed to doing “things right.”
This more nuanced position of Etxanobe responds to the doubts – if not rejection – that this project generates in the area, the Busturialdea region, and in Bizkaia as a whole.
In the absence of knowing the details of the project, the proposal basically proposes building a new Guggenheim Museum located in two towns in the Urdaibai reserve, Gernika and Murueta, connecting both locations “through a green path.”
The museum reception and other general services would be located in Gernika, a town of 17,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, in Murueta, a municipality of 300 inhabitants located next to the Urdaibai marsh, a second building would be located that would house the exhibition rooms. Between one town and the other, another of the claims of the proposal would be the path that connects these two municipalities, located on the marsh and which today is a quiet walk enjoyed by the residents of the area and, especially on weekends, some visitors.
The Provincial Council of Bizkaia began defending this project 14 years ago, then focusing it on the municipality of Sukarrieta (also in Urdaibai).
The previous economic crisis destroyed the proposal and, once the most dramatic consequences of that economic situation had been overcome, the previous deputy general of Bizkaia, Unai Rementeria, rescued and redesigned a project that the Basque Government has never seen with enthusiasm.
The new proposal presents obvious difficulties, even from a legal point of view, and requires modification of the regulations protecting the reserve. Basically, the main complexity involved is making the arrival of around 140,000 visitors a year to the heart of the reserve compatible, according to the estimates of its promoters, with the protection of the values ??of a biosphere reserve, the only one in the community. autonomous of Euskadi.
It is at this point where doubts multiply. At the moment, the project does not generate the enthusiasm and consensus that an initiative of this magnitude would need. And the Provincial Council, the most fervent defender of the project, is aware.
The only party that included this project in its electoral program, the PNV of Gernika, was third in the May municipal elections, surpassed, although by a narrow margin, by two lists, EH Bildu and Guztiontzako Herria, which did not include it.
Since the project was launched 14 years ago, the social perception of Basque society regarding tourism and the externalities it generates has completely changed, while awareness of the natural environment has multiplied. The new project will have to deal with this new reality.
