Discovering the ZAWP Bilbao — by Nicolas André, 3rd-year student:
6:20 am, on the pavement of Place Gambetta, Bordeaux. A crowd gathers in the darkness of early dawn — students, digital professionals, representatives from Bordeaux City Hall. Heads hovering between half-remembered dreams and the sharp morning chill. The two chartered coaches pull up and swallow the crowd whole. The sun rises at 7:23 am, the motorway rolls past, and I slip back into a dream. Around 9:30 am, we stop at a motorway services; a decent dose of caffeine primes my brain for what promises to be a packed day. Then the border crossing. Our master of ceremonies — I speak of Antoine Bidegain — improvises as a tour guide between briefings on the day's programme. I join my group, tasked with researching the history of the site and the ZAWP.We arrive at the promised land around noon. Two trains — one red, one blue — are waiting to begin the tour. A hasty first contact with ZAWP members lets me put faces to our subject of discovery; we must hurry — we're 45 minutes behind schedule! Through a raw steel gate, the wagons enter the wasteland. I feel a sense of abandonment looking at these titanic warehouses, trees rooted in the cracks of concrete slabs covering the ground. The loudspeakers crackle in Spanish then French, narrating the history of the peninsula. People lived here, worked here; today, nothing remains but walls and roofs.During this hour spent among the derelict pavilions, I catch a glimpse of the association's spirit and passion for this industrial heritage destined for rehabilitation. The tour ends facing a passage several metres wide, dominated by a simple shed. We arrive at a square furnished with an outdoor lounge made from cleverly recycled pallets; the walls, meanwhile, are covered in considered — I would say aesthetic — graffiti.
Manu, founder and visionary behind the Haceria, welcomes us into a recently renovated pavilion. A buffet is laid out along one side of the vast space. I take this break to exchange first impressions with people, old acquaintances and strangers alike. At 3 pm, we are invited to join our working groups. The professionals are mixed together for coworking workshops; we students, meanwhile, enjoy a detailed tour of the site and the reasons that led Manu to create the Haceria in 1997. At that moment, I grasp the significance of such an undertaking. The ideas and motivation that make the ZAWP a solid foundation for the creation and development of a creative and entrepreneurial ecosystem. I hold on to one phrase from our guide Jon: "
We don't want what happened in the Guggenheim neighbourhood to happen here. A few years ago, that neighbourhood was an industrial wasteland. Like Zorrotzaure, the institutions decided to rehabilitate it — they built a new neighbourhood in place of the old one. All of Europe applauded this act, yet the people who lived there, who knew the neighbourhood before, no longer recognise themselves in this transformation." After the visit, our group moves into a pavilion dedicated to coworking to go through the documentary resources made available to us and listen to audio recordings of various speeches by association representatives. In two hours of deciphering and transcription, we piece together a clear account of the neighbourhood's and the association's history. Pressed by the morning's delays, we are unable to finish our deliverable on site in order to attend the presentation by groups of professionals from Bordeaux and Bilbao. Dazzled by camera flashes, I suggest to Antoine Bidegain that we gather event photos from participants; after a brief approach to the day's generous photographers, over 200 photos are uploaded to the ZAWPBX website. Shortly after 6 pm, the Bordeaux crowd piles into the Basque city's metro. The mood is relaxed as we head into the city centre. We find refuge on a square lined with tapas bars, each more authentic than the last.Around 9 pm, Antoine Bidegain — tireless trail-blazer — leads us to the meeting point with our rolling dormitories. Over five hours by coach, ending less than 50 metres from where we started. A perfect loop. Head full of images, stories and rich lessons, I walk the last kilometre on foot before collapsing onto my pillow.
Nicolas André | 3rd-year student,
Bachelor Web Project Manager at
Bordeaux
