Abroad

Externally, the building is endowed with an undoubted monumentality and presents evident conditions for its consideration as a relevant element, the particular conception of its facades being key to the relationship of the building with the rest of the city and a determining factor in the qualification to be carried out from the most diverse perspectives. The assessment regarding the external image of the building can be carried out from two different levels, derived from its relationship with the immediate environment and the materiality of its settlement on the ground, on the one hand, and as a built unit within the group of those in the expansion, on the other. The building shows the imperatives that arise from the resolution of its functional program, presenting, within the homogeneity of its image, nuanced solutions on its ground floor along the entire perimeter, at the meeting with the surrounding roads based on their altimetric levels and the need for access to the interior of the building.

In a more global vision, it offers a unique image that clearly identifies it as a unique building compared to the surrounding buildings, mostly residential, by resolving its façade with certain compositional elements that suggest an industrial use of the building, on the one hand, and show a clearly urban character, on the other. The use of different materials and decorative criteria arranged in horizontal stripes and the ornate windows as the upper finishing of the elevations mark a constant criterion in the qualification of its built perimeter, which presents, however, a note of emphasis derived from a condition sensitive to its insertion in the expansion: the use, precisely at the singular points created by the urban fabric itself, of finishing towers where the continuous façade turns - the corners - configuring, in addition, a characteristic front towards Arriquíbar Square.

The roof is flat and there are large skylights, located over the interior circulation streets, resolved by inclined planes on a metal structure.

The different uses accommodated in the building since its closure as a warehouse have caused alterations in the original configuration of the building; the most notable, as far as the exterior of the building is concerned, the tearing of two ground floor openings in front of Alameda de Urquijo. Previously, on an undetermined date, the ironwork finials located on the cornice, between the crowns of the window fronts on the upper floor, were replaced by facing brick panels that alter the primitive perception of said crowns, silhouetted against the sky, and subtract compositional singularity from the first floor wall canvas, the only element of the building resolved in that same material. There are also a multitude of specific defects in façade elements derived from small actions taken throughout the life of the building.

Inside

The interior presents a diaphanous configuration in which the undoubted attractiveness of the possibility of experiencing the entire space corresponding to a block of the expansion is combined with the geometric rigor that the structure possesses, which fosters notable perceptions of the space modulated by it. The reinforced concrete porticos (La Alhóndiga was one of the first buildings made with this technique in Vizcaya), present a repetitive modulation that is slightly altered in the areas where various functional needs demand it. The circulation streets inside the ground and basement floors, associated vertically with large openings in the upper floors to provide lighting for the complex, create areas of rupture of the structural plot. The reason for its existence, therefore, must be sought in the functional adaptation to the use for which it was designed, this being, consequently, an aspect to preferably be considered in the assessment of the building. The cleanliness and forcefulness of the existing structure, however, end up spatially characterizing its interior.

Abroad

Externally, the building is endowed with an undoubted monumentality and presents evident conditions for its consideration as a relevant element, the particular conception of its facades being key to the relationship of the building with the rest of the city and a determining factor in the qualification to be carried out from the most diverse perspectives. The assessment regarding the external image of the building can be carried out from two different levels, derived from its relationship with the immediate environment and the materiality of its settlement on the ground, on the one hand, and as a built unit within the group of those in the expansion, on the other. The building shows the imperatives that arise from the resolution of its functional program, presenting, within the homogeneity of its image, nuanced solutions on its ground floor along the entire perimeter, at the meeting with the surrounding roads based on their altimetric levels and the need for access to the interior of the building.

In a more global vision, it offers a unique image that clearly identifies it as a unique building compared to the surrounding buildings, mostly residential, by resolving its façade with certain compositional elements that suggest an industrial use of the building, on the one hand, and show a clearly urban character, on the other. The use of different materials and decorative criteria arranged in horizontal stripes and the ornate windows as the upper finishing of the elevations mark a constant criterion in the qualification of its built perimeter, which presents, however, a note of emphasis derived from a condition sensitive to its insertion in the expansion: the use, precisely at the singular points created by the urban fabric itself, of finishing towers where the continuous façade turns - the corners - configuring, in addition, a characteristic front towards Arriquíbar Square.

The roof is flat and there are large skylights, located over the interior circulation streets, resolved by inclined planes on a metal structure.

The different uses accommodated in the building since its closure as a warehouse have caused alterations in the original configuration of the building; the most notable, as far as the exterior of the building is concerned, the tearing of two ground floor openings in front of Alameda de Urquijo. Previously, on an undetermined date, the ironwork finials located on the cornice, between the crowns of the window fronts on the upper floor, were replaced by facing brick panels that alter the primitive perception of said crowns, silhouetted against the sky, and subtract compositional singularity from the first floor wall canvas, the only element of the building resolved in that same material. There are also a multitude of specific defects in façade elements derived from small actions taken throughout the life of the building.