Audio:
Welcome to Rialia, Museum of Industry.
We hope you approach this space with curiosity and desire to be surprised. You can begin to imagine what is happening based on what you perceive through all the stimuli.
This museum is located in a privileged enclave. This watchtower allows us to understand the scenario in which the events of our maritime history and the industry of the left bank took place in the last 150 years.
We want to fill your head with more than just knowledge, data and concepts. We want you to leave here with more questions than answers. We want you to enjoy our prepared points to provoke you. Nothing you find or perceive is a coincidence.
We want to spark curiosity and interest in your brain about our industrial history and the history of the people who have made it possible.
First, we want to tell you that Portugalete is Bizkaia’s door to the ocean. There is a scene of the estuary and sea. We are a few meters from the mouth of the Nervión estuary, which is subject to tides. It is seawater that enters the earth. We are facing a port that will mark a way of being and being in the world.
While you explore this scenario, modified to serve port activity, you will be able to learn about the iron pier, the suspension bridge, and the Santurtzi dam… and you can enjoy the relaxing sound of the sea cooing on the dock and the seagulls searching for sustenance for their offspring.
We are also part of a territory containing the material that the stars and the planet’s heart are made: iron.
That is the second point of support with which we will seduce you so that you can enjoy one of the great riches this territory has had, iron ore. We will tell you about what has happened around iron and an industry that provided work and life for several generations. This will allow you to see first-hand the evolution of the transformations around the industrial development of the left bank that made Bizkaia what it is today.
We also want a multifaceted, multidisciplinary vision of our world and environment.
The music you are listening to has been composed explicitly for this museum. It is a soundscape of metallic percussion, united with sounds from the sea and the workshops. We hope you enjoy it during your visit. But it is not the only music you will find. The Band Train awaits you on the first floor.
You will also find literary texts by people who felt moved by this environment.
Take advantage of the opportunity to touch and perceive other realities through touch. You will find a sign telling you which items are there to handle. And you will smell the smell of the industry when you look at the model of Altos Hornos, just as you smell the sea now.
At the end of the visit, on the first floor, you can immerse yourself in an underwater world full of wonders. The Abra’s waters surrounding this building are full of life, allowing us to know what happens beneath that sheet of water.
And stay playing for a while because, as mammals that we are, we also learn by playing.
Let us begin.
