History of Compañía de Maderas lumber company
In our stroll along the estuary toward Abandoibarra, we’ll reach what is now an icon of Bilbao-Bizkaia and all of the Basque Country, the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum.
Decades ago, though, this same place was home to one of the largest and most beautiful sawmills along the Bilbao estuary: Compañía de Maderas.
A bit of history
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Lumber consumption was fully associated with two of the main industrial activities that have characterised the economy of Bizkaia: iron production and shipbuilding. In the 15th century, oak was already being used to produce charcoal to fuel the foundries as well as for large parts and curves of the ships being built in Olabeaga, la Ribera de Deusto, Punta Zorrotza and Portugalete. But oak wasn’t the only wood being used. Carpenters on the riverbank commonly used beech for oars, elm and ash for frames and walnut for certain rigging components.
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In Bizkaia wood supply was relatively easy to come by given the huge forests the territory had at the time. Nonetheless, in the 19th century, wood reserves started dwindling due to the high demand entailed by the industrial revolution. The significant growth in the population extended the city limits of Bilbao. That includes not only the metropolitan area but also industrial municipalities along the estuary, the mining area and residential towns like Getxo experienced unusual urban growth, leading to skyrocketing demand for housing, which in turn meant skyrocketing demand for wood, as, until concrete began being used to build homes in the 1930s, wood was essential for home construction. Wood for was used for structures, for framing, for floors, windows, doors... And then you still had to furnish the place and heat it with charcoal or wood.
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Urban and industrial growth also required wood for a wide variety of other uses including pine posts to hang electrical, telegraph and telephone wires. Wood was used to channel the estuary with sheet piling and framing. Iron ore loading docks on the estuary were originally made of wood, as well as iron ore train cars and, especially, the infinite number of train tracks, wooden coaches, carriages and carts used in the land transport system of that time. That’s not to mention the papermills, or the wood necessary to package factory-made products: metal parts, weapons, tinned food, wine, salted foods and more.
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In the 18th century, the carpenters in Bizkaia along the estuary had a tradition of importing wood from countries further north like Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Later, especially in the mid-19th century, Norwegian companies had a huge presence and controlled a large portion of imports, which they complemented with importing cod. This boom favoured the presence of numerous sawmills in Bilbao, some of which were powered by steam.
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The largest sawmills on the Bilbao estuary were Norwegian. Of all of them, the one that lasted the longest was Compañía de Maderas, which was located where the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum is now situated. The company was legally founded in 1884, although it was the successor to the businesses of the Spanish company Sorensen, Yakhelln y Cía, which began operations in 1874. In 1908, the company commissioned Gregorio Ibarreche to build its La Salve facilities.
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Ibarreche was one of the first local architects to dare to apply ornamentation and the style discourse to manufacturing facilities, thus adding his work to that of a number of European colleagues and avoiding the traditional utilitarian ‘ugliness’ that usually adorned the Basque fishing industry at that time.