The Flowing Garden in Bilbao Spain

The Flowing Garden in Bilbao Spain

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Bilbao, Spain, has noteworthy architecture and has been on my list of must-see places for a while.  Now, I have yet another reason for wanting to visit.  This stunning garden – dubbed The Flowing Garden – was created by the New York-based landscape and urban design office of Balmori Associates.

Aerial view of a large, abstract plant sculpture with vibrant flowers and greenery set between stairways in Bilbao. This flowing garden attracts visitors moving around the sculpture on a paved plaza, providing a sense of scale and perspective.
Block planting creates a painterly quality in the Bilbao flow garden. It is as if a couple of cans of giant-sized paint were upturned and their colors flowed and swirled together as they spilled down the steps.
The urban landscape of Bilbao features star-shaped metal planters filled with vibrant red, purple, and green plants. These flowing garden installations rest on a paved surface beside wide concrete stairs, framed by trees and the sleek architecture of modern buildings in the background.
Aerial view of Bilbao's modern urban landscape with a large, flowing garden shaped like an abstract flower next to a staircase. Surrounding buildings and streetlights are visible, with a backdrop of trees and distant hills under the twilight sky in Spain.
A person walks up wide, gray stone steps with lush green and flowering plants lining the path, resembling a flowing garden. The scene is set in an urban area of Bilbao, Spain, with modern architecture and people in the distance.

Called the “Garden That Climbs The Steps,” Balmori Associates describes the garden:

“The garden climbs the stairs, running in undulating lines of different textures and colors. Envisioned as a dynamic urban space, it moves in time and with the seasons. Its lush planting cascades down as though the garden is flowing or melting, bleeding the colors into each other. In one gesture, it narrates a story of landscape taking over and expanding over the Public Space and Architecture, therefore transforming the way that the stairs and the space are perceived and read by the user.

A paved urban area in Bilbao showcases vibrant flower beds, with purple and red blossoms bordered by rust-colored metal edges. Three people walk along the wide path of this flowing garden, adding a sense of scale to the spacious setting.
In Bilbao, two people walk down a large stone staircase that features a flowing garden with lush greenery and vibrant flowers. The stairs create a striking contrast with the colorful plants, adding to Spain's enchanting charm.

Balmori Associates is doing a lot of work in Bilbao. In a city of contrasts, it is both medieval and elegant, modern and contemporary. They are working on a master plan that ties together the old part of town anchored by the 14th-century Gothic Santiago Cathedral and the Frank O. Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum, which anchors a more contemporary side to the city.

I love what the designers have to say about their own creation:  “Like the famous Spanish Steps in Rome, the garden is not only designed for visitors to ascend and descend but for them to linger and just be.”

images by Iwan Baan



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