History of Zorrotzaurre: the channel and the Deusto riverside

In 2018, the area known as Zorrotzaurre was converted into an island with its focus on urban regeneration for new uses, attempting to maintain its industrial nature by reusing some of its industrial gems.

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A bit of history

  • Just as San Sebastian has Santa Clara island, so Bilbao had its islands: San Cristóbal, in the Peña neighbourhood, and Uribitarte. Both disappeared decades ago, but Bilbao held out and finally got one on the Deusto riverside, which has popularly been known as Zorrotzaurre.

  • The need for ground, both for residential and economic uses, caused the elizates of Deusto and Begoña to be annexed by Bilbao on 1 January 1925. The lower part of Deusto, the riverside, has historically been an area of industrial activity. Since the Medieval era, there is evidence of the presence of shipyards and other maritime and port activities.

  • In the 1920s, the need to create a new route for the estuary was considered quite seriously to circumvent the historically difficult and dangerous passage of ships through Elorrieta, Zorrotza and Olabeaga and provide straight entry to El Arenal. In 1929, architects Segurola and Odriozola signed the Urban Expansion Project for the Town of Bilbao with the annexations of Begoña, Deusto and part of Erandio and this document considered the widening of the channel at Deusto to take these three curves out of the estuary.

  • Due to the Spanish Civil War, the project was picked back up more than a decade later, in 1950. It involved nearly five kilometres of jetties whose complex constructions lasted until 1968. After 18 years of work, the project was halted due to the poor condition of the soil and the engineers’ inability to find solutions for very soft ground, causing the route to end about 400 metres from the estuary at the Euskalduna shipyards. Deusto, therefore, was left open to the channel, although not entirely.

  • Although the channel was not finished off, the inlet built was enough to achieve the project’s initial goal: respond to growing merchant traffic. Even in the mid-1970s, the bonded warehouse was moved to the left bank of the channel and is today unrecognisable. It arrived from the Uribitarte locking docks, in the place today occupied by the Isozaki towers. It was in 2002 when, this port service left the channel and moved down to Santurtzi, its current location. These were the death rattles of the channel. Port activity was settled in its new facilities in Santurtzi and Zierbena and merchant traffic was quite scarce. The Port Authority officially closed the dock in 2006.

  • Thus, despite its name, the Deusto channel was never a channel. It was simply an artificial inlet that began to be built with a goal of connecting Bilbao fully with the ocean, but it remained 400 metres from completion as muddy soil hindered the finalisation of the project. In 2018, Zorrotzaurre was converted into an island with its focus on regeneration for new uses, attempting to maintain its industrial nature by reusing some of its industrial gems.