Tales of the City: the Bilbao Saga(s)

Abstract

This article, seeks to emphasise the role that the narrative form plays in our way of understanding and
conceiving space and the city. More especially, it focusses in on the profound and complex urban transformation
process that Bilbao has undergone over recent decades. The narrative form, which is used in many official
texts, politician’s speeches but likewise by many citizens, has contributed its coherence to a confusing,
changing and multidimensional period. The research made is based on an analysis of the structure, plot
and temporal sequence of such narratives and of their power to make things plain. A qualitative methodology
has been used together with semi-structured personal interviews with local leaders interviewed as to the
recent decades of Bilbao’s history. This analysis was then complemented by a study of official texts such as
regulatory and strategic planning documents, brochures and other urban marketing materials produced by
the local institutions when these could make claim to a narrative form. The aim of this article is to analyse
which, among of the numberless ways of telling the tale of Bilbao’s most recent years, has imposed itself on
the rest as the official narrative version of events and why it has done so for all.