This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at La piscina con vistas por arriba y por abajo

EMC combines the cultural offering with recreation and physical activity

The swimming pool with views above and below

Drafting Interempresas29/06/2011

June 29, 2011

The Alhóndiga de Bilbao - T'HO-old warehouse of wines, spirits and alcohols modernist, the work of Ricardo Bastida (1909) and rehabilitated recently from the hand of Phillippe Starck, is a unique entertainment, and cultural hub because unlike other cultural centers multi-purpose (such as the Barcelona's CCCB and La Casa Encendida of Madrid), he dedicated one of its three wings to the exercise and sport. The icing that crowns the cake is your swimming pool, located on the roof and from which you can see the capital of Bizkaia.

Image of the swimming pool on the roof of T'HO. Photo: Emila Brandao.

If at the time the construction of the Guggenheim Museum renewed the entire area of the estuary of Bilbao attracting tourism, in the rehabilitation of facades and the interior of the Alhóndiga transformation, located in Rekalde, commercial and administrative centre of Ensanche, been thought more in the enjoyment of the own Bilbao. The Alhóndiga is a multidisciplinary space, open to all citizens, and oriented towards knowledge, well-being and fun. A leisure centre, with all kinds of catering services, without forgetting the culture and the added value of a very wide and offer specific to physical exercise.

'mens sana in corpore sano'

EMC has been associated itself with the maximum of Juvenal of 'mens sana in corpore sano'. Physical activity rises in the Center "with the desire to combine the traditional exercise on health with a comprehensive development of the person". For this reason, along with its cultural offerings, its sports offer includes a physical activity center, which employs more than 7,750 m2, distributed over four floors. It has a large gymnasium of 1,100 square meters opened almost every day of the year with equipment to exercise any kind of physical activity, a swimming pool, six activities and two changing rooms.

From the atrium of the entry more than 9 m in height, feet, and the silhouettes of people swimming can be observed. Photo: Emilia Brandao.

The last plant of AlhóndigaBilbao, the fourth, houses a swimming pool with solárium. The swimming pool of AlhondigaBilbao is opened the seven days of the week during all the year and almost all day and besides, during the summer opens to his side the terrace of the sun. In the floor of one of the three glasses there is small recuadros of glass, what allows to see to more than 9 metres/meters of height —from the atrium of entrance— the feet and the silhouettes of the people swimming. The glass used in the swimming pool is a glass antideslizante of security laminado with SentryGlas of Dupont. SentryGlass Is an intercalario whose peculiarity is that it endows to the glass laminado of a resistance very supoerior to the normal.

The 'Water' form, pits host courses for swimming and watersports. They are more than 70 targeted activities such as swimming courses, both children and adults, Antepartum swimming, Aqua fitness, Aqua aerobics and a long etcetera. In addition, following the idiosyncrasy of the Bilbao cultural center, under the premise of a "space for all", EMC began the last October, a course of swimming for disabled.

Image of the street of the pool with small boxes of glass. Photo: Emilia Brandao.

The old wine store

In 1905 a young Ricardo Bastida was commissioned to build a new alhóndiga in Albia Ensanche bilbaíno and raises a large industrial, functional and advanced building serving of wines, liquors and spirits store. Modernist style, it was erected in brick and reinforced concrete, finishing its construction in 1909. From the 1970s to relocate their activity to the new alhóndiga located in Rekalde, the building was waiting to be fitted with a new utility. Declared "well of Cultural interest' by the Basque Government (1999), celebrated its 100 years of existence after the rehabilitation of facades and inner transformation, which includes the construction of new spaces for the hand of Philippe Starck. The only thing that has been preserved of the construction of Bastida are the artistic original facades. T'HO has three buildings four floors with seven more underground. Of these, five are intended for parking and two cinemas with a large exhibition hall and an auditorium with seating capacity for 400 people. One of the most remarkable interior spaces are the 43 columns of 3 metres in height located at the hall, created by film setting Lorenzo Baraldi expert in different styles, and various decorative materials such as marble, bronze, wood, brick, glazed terracotta or stone Lecce creating a heterogeneous decorative style of special beauty.