The Mugak/ Biennial opens its ephemeral pavilion in Bilbao and will display its programme in the city until 23 November

2023 November 6

• Located in the Muelle Campa de los Ingleses, with the name 'Mugak/ HABIT[atu]Z', it has been designed by the Bilbao studio behark and assembled using a modular construction system.
• Talks on the phenomenon of discotheques in the Basque Country and a guided bus tour, an exhibition on a project by Oteiza for Zorrozaurre, conferences on the concept of the domestic... This morning all the activities that a multitude of agents have programmed in the city, all of them free of charge, were presented.
• The renowned researcher Beatriz Colomina and the Madrid studio amid.cero9 will be in Azkuna Zentroa presenting the work they are exhibiting in 'Inhabiting change', the central exhibition of Mugak/ 2023.

The programme of the Mugak/ Basque Country International Architecture Biennial arrives in Bilbao with the opening of an ephemeral pavilion that will take architecture to the streets. 'Mugak/ HABIT[atu]Z' was inaugurated this morning, and a press conference was held to announce the rest of the activities, all of them free of charge, that Mugak/ will bring to the Biscayan capital until 23 November.

Although the Biennial already arrived in Bilbao in 2021, it is in this fourth edition that it will have a stronger presence than ever in the city. "Throughout its four editions, Mugak/ has attracted to the Basque Country great figures of prestige in the world of architecture and has mixed them with young promises, international careers with local architects to bring the Biennial closer to the citizens, which has made it a point of reference throughout the Atlantic Arc", said this morning the Deputy Minister of Housing of the Basque Government, Pedro Jauregui, who highlighted the fact that Mugak/ attracts thousands of people every two years.

An inhabited pavilion

María Arana, curator of this fourth Mugak/ Biennial, has highlighted the value of the pavilion as "a tool for bringing architecture closer to the citizens. It is also in line with the motto of this fourth edition, 'rebuild, reinhabit, rethink', thanks to the construction system used, which in itself represents an urgent, imaginative and transformative solution that addresses some of the challenges facing today's society".

This is the HABIT[+] system, which the Bilbao studio behark has used in the design and construction of 'Mugak/ HABIT[atu]Z'. "We sought to rethink the purpose of an exhibition pavilion at an architecture biennial, a pavilion that would blur the boundaries ('mugak', in Basque) between container and content", stated the principal architects of this practice, Beñat Saratxaga and Gentzane Goikuria.

HABIT[+] is a modular transformation system for the improvement of existing residential buildings through the addition of new living spaces and exterior galleries, which generate useful, comfortable and quality spaces for homes and buildings where they are needed. It is based on the use of prefabricated, repetitive but at the same time diverse (versatile and adaptable) modules that allow a quick and light construction adapted to each circumstance. According to behark, "the modules are made up by combining different elements depending on the needs and/or deficiencies to be solved in each transformation intervention and are combined to adapt to the problems to be solved, the orientation in which the intervention takes place, the urban situation, etc.". HABIT [+] also integrates one of the axes of this edition, the concern for the environment: "The system is born associated with wood as the main structural and constructive element, as this is the only construction material that reduces the carbon footprint in its production and construction cycle, thus guaranteeing its sustainability".

One of the Mugak/ stages in Bilbao

The pavilion will host some of the activities that the Biennial will deploy in Bilbao until 23 November. Specifically, on the 8th, the conference 'Rehabiting the domestic' will be held. On the one hand, several innovative programmes in urban, integral and sustainable regeneration will be presented by the municipal company Surbisa. The 'Loft Study House' guide will also be presented, which includes recommendations and examples of good practices for transforming empty ground floor premises in urban areas into housing.

This guide has been promoted by the Department of Territorial Planning, Housing and Transport of the Basque Government and has counted on the participation of the Bilbao studio Acha Zaballa Arquitectos, which has already developed three projects in Santutxu and Mina del Morro within this framework. In fact, one of its partners, Cristina Acha, will participate in this conference with a lecture on her work, emphasising how design can be a tool for re-inhabiting spaces and on the concept of the 'domestic'. This is one of the conferences associated with this year's main exhibition, 'Inhabiting change', where the studio has represented these three social dwellings through an exhibition piece.

Finally, one of the two publications that Mugak/ is promoting at this edition will be presented: 'Rethink to reinhabit the domestic', created by HALO Arkitektura. It is an informative guide available at various points of this Biennial, free of charge, which invites us to reflect on our housing, how we inhabit them and the forms they adopt. In addition, an Instagram profile has been set up as a tool for collecting the reflections and conclusions of the participating public (@re_domestico).

The second publication will be presented in the form of a forensic architecture workshop through Bilbao's Old Town, which will end at the pavilion on 10 November. 'Trazas de ronda' is the project by Jaime Gutiérrez Armendariz, Andrea Aguilera Ruiz and Itziar Molinero Miranda, which stems from an investigation into a family building located in this area that was put up for sale due to disuse and its near-collapse situation. On this basis, the graphic document aims to reconstruct how people lived there for generations, by analysing traces, marks... that were found in the houses. The workshop will seek to replicate this way of working in the streets and, through techniques such as 'frottage', plaster casts or objects that the public can find, samples of what was lived in them will be sought.

The pavilion will also host the programme 'disco-TEKAK. Bumping temples on the coast of Gipuzkoa', promoted by the Bilbao studio BeAr Architects, from 15 to 17 November. The three lectures aim to offer a diverse approach to the social phenomenon of bumping in the Basque disco scene, society, leisure, fashion... in order to understand its context and implications and to extend beyond localism this phenomenon of leisure and urban tribes. The conferences will be given by top-level speakers: David Bestué, Fernando Castro and Iñaki Garmendia; María Langarita and Pol Esteve; and Ernesto Castro and Patxi Eguiluz. In addition, on the 18th, a guided bus tour has been organised from Bilbao to visit the remains of some of these temples on the coast of Gipuzkoa.

Finally, the programme of 'side events' Off Mugak/, a new feature of this fourth edition, will bring two conferences to the pavilion on 23 November. The first is 'The RE prefix on the outskirts of Guadalajara', by the Mexican architect Luis Manuel Ochoa Sosa. Then it will be the turn of 'Guiri, drifts and reflections', a dialogue from the point of view of students and teachers from the TEC de Monterrey in Bilbao, which is based on a trip/workshop on the interaction between architecture, visitors, tourists and their effects on cities.

The Bilbao estuary, an axis for rethinking the city

Another of the programmes bringing a variety of activities to Bilbao is 'TThe Bilbao estuary as a strategic axis for reconstructing, re-inhabiting and rethinking the metropolitan urban space'. It is promoted by Bilbao Metrópoli-30, which in turn brings together a multitude of local agents. It will kick off on 7 November at Itsasmuseum, where a virtual tour of the past, present and future of the Bilbao estuary will be presented by Caminos Euskadi and the Bilbao Port Authority. In the end, there will be a guided tour of the installation 'Piel de luz', which represents the profound urban transformation of Bilbao over a period of 25 years.

On 8 November it will be the turn of the exhibition 'The immobile city. Oteiza in Bilbao', which will be located in the Bilbao headquarters of the Colegio de Arquitectos Vasco-Navarro and will show the project that a group of students carried out in 1994 together with the artist for the new Zorrozaurre. It will be presented at 19h and will open to the public the following day.

Another exhibition will open in La Terminal. It is 'Katebegi / Link / Eslabón', a retrospective view of the Zorrozaurre island from 2008 to 2023, on the management of the ZAWP 'Meanwhile' concept. It will be presented on the 10th at 19h and will open its doors the following day.

On 14 November, the workshop 'Reuse of riverside structures in the Bilbao estuary' will be held at IED Kunsthal, led by Aitor Ortiz and Ricardo Ruiz. And finally, on the 15th, the painting exhibition 'Bilbao, the city we dream of' will open at Amiarte, a reflection from the feeling of a whole journey and dialogue on the Bilbao estuary and the city, by artists from 12 countries.

More free activities

Architecture for young people comes from Maushaus, which has organised workshops designed to coincide with the exhibition 'Gego. Measuring Infinity' exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. They approach the artist's work, highlighting her relationship with architectural space. These are 'Through space', on the 10th, and 'The construction of a shadow', on the 17th.

There will be a second Off Mugak/ activity in Bilbao on 9 November at IED Kunsthal: the conference 'Re-thinking the city by the landscape design', organised by SoiL, will address the possibilities and solutions for 'rrebuild, reinhabit, rethink' the city.

Finally, the official technical architecture associations of the three provinces of the Basque Country have organised 'REdoing: Industrialized renovation: how to apply new technologies to 'remake' the building stock'. Through a keynote speech by Russell Loveridge and a round table discussion with experts from the construction and refurbishment sector, the aim is to reflect on the latest technologies applicable to the great challenge of renovating existing buildings.

Mugak/ keynote speeches

In addition to all the programming that different agents have created for this fourth edition, the Mugak/ Biennial will bring to Bilbao two more presentations associated with its main exhibition, 'Inhabiting Change'. They are the Madrid studio amid.cero9 and the researcher Beatriz Colomina, who will be at Azkuna Zentroa on 22 November. Amid.cero9 will bring to Bilbao 'Worlding', a programme that is currently being developed at the Institute of Architecture of the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and describes the working method of Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda, founders of the studio, both in their academic work and in amid.cero9. For his part, Colomina, along with his colleagues Ignacio G. Galán and Evangelos Kotsioris the project 'Radical Pedagogies', which has spent a decade researching the new forms of learning that transformed the teaching of architecture in the decades after the Second World War.