Urgent! ! ! Why build the Valentin Bridge in Bilbao, Spain?

Bilbao is an ancient city with a history of 700 years. In the era when Spain dominated the sea, it became an important port city and the center of social and economic development in Basque Autonomous Region, and began to decline in the17th century.

/kloc-In the 0/9th century, Bilbao was revived for producing iron ore. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Basque country was the locomotive leading Spain's industrialization. Bilbao, the capital, jumped to the fourth largest city in Spain, but declined again after the middle of the 20th century.

For a long time, the economy has been sluggish, and the Neville River flowing through the urban area is seriously polluted. The Guggenheim Museum along the river was once an abandoned industrial land. At that time, the economy of the Basque country was seriously affected by the transformation of heavy industry and once fell into a deep crisis.

In order to get rid of the predicament, the local government is determined to carry out urban transformation, and building a museum is an important part of Bilbao's urban transformation plan.

1997, Guggenheim Museum was officially completed and opened. A masterpiece that shocked the world of architecture was born in a medium-sized city that was almost forgotten, and immediately became world news. Before the completion of the art museum, it was used as a shipyard, a container receiving and dispatching area and a chemical blast furnace area. The completed Guggenheim Museum is like a huge silver aircraft carrier, moored beside the Narwin River, and now the flowing river has no chemical waste drifting on the river all the year round.

Valentin footbridge is the work of Spanish native architect calatrava. It is also called "calatrava Pedestrian Bridge" or "White Bridge". It spans the Neville River in the center of Bilbao and is adjacent to the Guggenheim Museum. Like the Guggenheim Museum, the Valentin footbridge is also a part of the urban reconstruction plan of Bilbao, and immediately became one of the landmarks of Bilbao after its completion.

Since the Guggenheim Museum will become the economic lifeline of Bilbao after its completion, the direct ticket income of Guggenheim Museum now accounts for 4% of Bilbao's tax revenue, and its related income accounts for more than 20%. Therefore, it is necessary to build a bridge across the north and south banks of the Naawer River in the center of Bilbao, connecting the north and south, and providing tourists with a convenient passage from the hotel to the nearby Guggenheim Museum.

The urban reconstruction plan of Bilbao has become a successful model of the concept of "promoting urban economy with culture" and a kind of "Bilbao effect".