Did you worry about the heritage you brought from Barcelona?
My father was from Barakaldo, expelled from here by Franco, met his mother in Barcelona, in Bilbao, and there I was born. There I had the opportunity to study architecture in very confusing times. In 1979, at a meeting on Catalan culture I heard that cultural heritage, especially architecture, was the main sign of identity of a people, beyond language, which caused me great concern. With these ideas I arrived in Bilbao in 1986 and it seemed to me that there was a lot to do in the matter of heritage, then I started writing critical articles, I noticed a delay in relation to Europe and Catalonia and the difference has not yet been shortened.

What delay did
you observe?Culture had no weight in society, beyond shows. At the architects' college, I started organizing events around heritage. So we had violent conflicts. The struggle for the elimination of the roof of the Plaza Nueva, not to demolish the Hotel Excelsior, in which one wanted to build a glass building for the General Boards, the Franco Deposit, the Alhóndiga… It had to be done hard, but the professional schools did not want to wet. It was then that I began to realize the cultural leaders we had at the municipal and foral level. As then, we are still in the hands of bad people today.

Have you often felt David in front of Goliath?
Yes, I have received little attention from the media, when there has been no censorship in sight. I've always felt lonely, some architects have supported me in college, but we've always been a minority. Society itself began to give importance to these issues, aware that this urban metropolis, with an enormous iconographic figurative force, was disappearing day by day.

Does architecture need a deontological code, has a social responsibility?Of
course, architecture is the most social of fine arts, as it aims to give people a home, to urbanize, to facilitate life. But architects have great economic and political pressures and, in addition, sensibility is not taught in the Faculty.

You're always looking for a committed team of visitors. Don't you care about tourists?
Committed people or, at least, teams with learning ability and able to receive a non-media discourse, willing to discuss it with arguments and knowledge. There are always associations of neighbours, social movements, groups of friends, professional colleges, universities, a Hungarian government team or French landscape architects… The tourist, on the other hand, is going to take the journey as a real distraction, takes pictures and is not going to go deeper, it is not worth it.

Do you deny that Bilbao has lived behind the rails?
Yes, it is a stupidity that has turned its back to the estuary. These are topical phrases, that stupidity that someone had come up with, believing that they contributed intellectually, and others have repeated it. In Areatza and Campo Volantín they have always lived looking at the ria and, on the left margin, the large houses in the area of Marzana are of very good quality. On the other hand, the port area is currently used as a recreational area, as in many other places.

It has frequently resorted to legal remedies in defence of heritage. The last cases with the terraces.
It would have to define what the terrace is, often it is autonomous expansions of the bar, with electricity, water, stone, coffee machine... Its implementation on the public road should lead to a social revolt. I have reported three cases: the first one in front of the Ribera market, about three meters from the shore of the valley, was clear that it was illegal, but I had to report it to the court and at the end it had to be withdrawn, after the intervention of the Ura agency. The second bar was built by the bar Astillero Euskalduna, inside the estuary, on the ruins of the former Olabeaga loader, on the water, with total impunity, by the inspectors of the City Hall of Bilbao. The third container was the bar-container installed last year at the Bizkaia Bridge, a world heritage site. Following the complaint, the Member’s response was shameful. People have to know who we are from. Hospitality has a great power, as has been seen recently with the rugby finals. Large economic impacts are cited without any data, and the arrival of international events in Bilbao is not a merit, these events are purchased on the international market.

How does turistification influence patrimony?
Tourism kills heritage, it loses the sense of the traditional to look for the typical. Things are done so that the stranger would smile and be photographed, he would seek transient happiness, and the peoples thus lose their own character.