Railway constructions and the development of the Bilbao river estuary as a port

In this fourth book in the “Maritimidades” collection, Historian Dr. Olga Macías of the University of the Basque Country seeks to help readers understand the importance of the development of the port through a study of the railway lines laid around the port itself and along the river. She provides further data, much of it published here for the first time, to highlight the importance of the railway network that began to operate in the area in the 19th century. Rail transport gradually acquired a fundamentally important role in meeting the needs of industry and of the port as they developed along both banks of the Bilbao river estuary in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Popular Maritime Festivities

“Maritimidades” is a collection of books focused on maritime studies that promotes various research areas and manifestations of maritime culture. With this collection, Itsasmuseum honours its commitment to publish and distribute works concerned with maritime culture and society based on scientific principles.

2016 saw the publication of the third volume in the collection, «Popular Maritime Festivities as Part of the Intangible Heritage of the Bilbao River Estuary, the El Abra Bay and the Western Coast of Bizkaia. A Socio-anthropological Perspective», by José Ignacio Homobono Martínez, , a socio-anthropologist and lecturer in Sociology at the University of the Basque Country.

Maritime Identity, Iconicity and Heritage

This is volume 2 of “Maritimidades”, a collection that specialises in maritime studies. Author Isusko Vivas is an anthropologist who lectures at the Fine Arts Faculty of the University of the Basque Country. From both the anthropological and iconographic viewpoints, the occupation of river banks by human settlements has been a historical and geographical fact wherever conditions were suitable and there were natural resources to be exploited. The waterfront origins of these communities give them a marked personality of their own, which is reflected in multiple manifestations that make up coastal landscapes. The author seeks to decipher, locate and study both the tangible evidence of these phenomena and the conditions that enabled them to come into being.

River Characters

Profiles of nine people whose businesses and projects changed Bilbao via the river estuary. They were prolific and multi-faceted in both their work and their lives, and their tales are told here by biographers, family members, essays and photos. In this book, the museum brings together the presentations given in the “Personalidades de la Ría” cycle of lectures and the reports on it published in local newspaper El Correo, along with photos provided by families. The aim is to highlight how these individuals contributed to the development of the Bilbao river estuary. Overall, it gives a broad picture of the period in which industry and the economy along the river took off, and of the people behind that success. The book ends with a guided tour of the river estuary, of the type that can be taken by visitors to the maritime museum.

Anthropology and the Maritime Dimension: Heritage Constructs and Networks in the El Abra Bay and Bilbao River Estuary

This is the first book in the “Maritimidades” specialist maritime studies collection published by the maritime museum.
The author analyses what he refers to as the “new maritime dimension” with new customs and types of relationship, leading to different heritage research parameters. Focusing on the geographical area of the Bilbao river estuary and the El Abra Bay, and more specifically on the fishing town of Santurtzi on the mouth of the bay, he identifies and analyses maritime aspects of life and how they have steadily changed over the past 15 years. As a case in point, he looks at fishwives as part of the production process for fish: over the years their traditional way of life in selling sardines has come into conflict with and been transformed by new forms of production and modernisation.

The Sea in Art, Art in the Sea

This publication is the catalogue for the exhibition El mar en el arte, el arte del mar [“The Sea in Art, Art in the Sea”] which was staged at the maritime museum in January 2011. The texts are by José Luis Merino, with a presentation by Jon Ruigómez Matxin and a preface by Javier Viar Olloqui. The attraction exerted by the sea, where life originated, and the desire for conquest felt by human beings have given rise to exciting voyages and adventures since the earliest times. The only parallel that can be found with them is the conquest of outer space.
This exhibition comprised 90 works inspired by the sea, in various fields of visual art, produced during the 19th and 20th centuries. The catalogue includes reproductions of all the works in the exhibition, grouped into thematic areas: Seascapes, Seafarers, Still Life (“the Harvest of the Sea”), Dreams of the Sea, Work on the Sea, Leisure by the Sea, Fear of the Sea, Nostalgia and Progress.

A Century with the Merchant Marine 1895-1995

A 3-volume reference work. Del Busto provides an overview of the history of the Merchant Marine in the Basque Country and the rest of Spain, including the stories of over 3000 vessels owned by 655 Basque and Spanish shipping companies throughout the 20th century.