The Mercado de la Ribera, located next to the Ría de Bilbao, is a commercial reference for all of Bizkaia. One of its many merits is having been recognized in 1990 as the most complete Municipal Food Market by Guinness, being the largest that existed then in terms of number of merchants and stalls, as well as the largest covered market in Europe thanks to its 10,000 square meters.
In mid-2009, the renovation work began to renew its structure, positions and services to continue being a commercial reference in the 21st century. Not surprisingly, life and business have never stopped in this space where more than 60 merchants manage to offer the customer the best products at the best price: meat, fruit, fish, seafood, cheeses, cold cuts, frozen foods, mushrooms ...
In the 14th century the market area of ??Bilbao was established in the Plaza Vieja or Mayor, next to the church of San Antón . This point was considered "the nerve center of the Villa". The market that was formed there had, in the words of Emiliano de Arriaga :
a market well stocked with what the most refined gourmet could desire .
In 1870 all the positions were already covered with a tejavana providing stable shelter from the inclement weather, the different positions had begun to be filled around the year 1840 . Shortly after, a much larger enclosure was built in cast and wrought iron and glass, following the modernist architecture fashion of the time. This new enclosure closed some of the sides and maintained a passage for pedestrians inside. This enclosure had a serious heat concentration problem for which an irrigation system was installed on its roof to make the interior temperature not unbearable. In 1850 a quality control service was established for fish, milk and meat.
In 1928 the decision was taken to build a new market that would allow the increase in the number of stalls. The 22 of August of 1929 a new building was inaugurated made of concrete reinforced work of the architect Pedro de Ispizua done in style rationalisttypical of the time. The project, in which functionality was sought, is based on open spaces without interior columns, with good ventilation to avoid unwanted odors and with very careful natural lighting in which translucent materials are used that allow the passage of overhead light from one floor to another and the use of large stained glass windows, lattices and rosettes. All this, together with the decoration of its facades, forms an eclectic art deco style .
Representatives of the then government of Spain led by General Primo de Rivera attended the inauguration, held in the middle of the Bilbao festivities .
In 1971 , Mercabilbao , Vizcaya's fresh merchandise distribution center, was inaugurated , and the Ribera market ceased to be the supply center for wholesalers in the area, and became a "neighborhood market" in Casco Viejo and Bilbao. The old woman.
In August 1983 it suffered serious damage due to the floods that devastated Vizcaya and its capital. Its reconstruction is used to carry out a profound reform modernizing the facilities.
In 1990 the Mercado de la Ribera entered the Guinness Book as the most complete Municipal Market of Supplies and is considered the largest market in terms of number of merchants and stalls.
In 2000, the Bilbao city council transferred the management of the market to the merchants, this management would be recovered in May 2008 when the merchants did not reach an agreement on its remodeling. Two years after an initial study is carried out on its structural state, which concludes that, at first glance, no structural failures are detected but that a more in-depth study should be carried out. The municipal proposal to carry out an interior reform gives rise to an in-depth study of the structural state of the same that is commissioned in 2008 , in October the company Labeinmakes public the results of this study in which it is exposed that there is a serious structural deficit with serious damage affecting the reinforced concrete in areas where the load per square meter cannot exceed 100 kg .
The origin of the structural damage is located in the use of beach sand for the manufacture of concrete. This sand, very rich in chlorides, would have caused the oxidation of the irons that make up the reinforcement of the concrete, jeopardizing the stability of the structural supporting elements. This forced the reconstruction of a large part of the building, an operation that was launched in the summer of 2009 with the commitment not to close a single day during the duration of the works.
On December 9, 2010, the first phase of the work was inaugurated, which is carried out under the project of the architect Emilio Puertas, which occupies the eastern part, the closest to the church of San Antón, and the central part of the same that represents about 7,000 meters squares to which are added another 3,000 that have been earned abroad, about 1,300 in San Antón and the rest in the Merced part. The reform, apart from correcting the serious structural problems, has implemented the most modern sales resources and has meant a radical change in the management of natural light with large glass surfaces. The old towpath has also been recovered.
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