Mondragon Unibertsitatea and Bilbao City Council inaugurate a sculpture of Don Jose María Arizmendiarrieta on the University's 25th anniversary
Mondragon Unibertsitatea and Bilbao City Council inaugurate a sculpture of Don Jose María Arizmendiarrieta on the University's 25th anniversary
Mondragon Unibertsitatea and Bilbao City Council inaugurate a sculpture of Don Jose María Arizmendiarrieta on the University's 25th anniversary
The sculpture represents a very characteristic image of Father Arizmendiarreta on a bicycle, which was his way of travelling in Mondragón in the likeness of working people
Mondragon Unibertsitatea today inaugurated, together with Bilbao City Council, a sculpture of Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, founder of the Mondragon cooperative movement, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the University.
The sculpture has been placed on the island of Zorrotzaurre, specifically in Erribera street, at the entrance to the Bilbao AS Fabrik multi-campus where Mondragon Unibertsitatea will be offering different university degrees and masters from January 2021, thanks to the collaboration that Bilbao City Council and Mondragon Unibertsitatea have maintained for many years.
The work was officially inaugurated by the Mayor of Bilbao Juan Mari Aburto and the President of Mondragon Unibertsitatea Mikel Álvarez. They were accompanied by the rector of Mondragon Unibertsitatea, Vicente Atxa; the general secretary of the university, Idoia Peñacoba; the director of the Higher Polytechnic School, Carlos García; the dean of the university's Business Faculty, Lander Beloki, the president of the Mondragon Corporation, Iñigo Ucin, and Arizmendiarreta's family members. Also attending on behalf of Bilbao City Council was part of the government team.
The sculpture has been designed by Laboratorios para el Arte de Estudios Durero, a creative industry specialised in graphic communication and art, which has worked with Alfa Arte to produce this work. The sculpture represents a very characteristic image of Father Arizmendiarreta on a bicycle, which was his way of travelling in Mondragón in the likeness of working people.
The sculpture is 1.5 metres wide, 3 metres high and 1.40 metres deep, dimensions that give the piece great presence and visibility. The work has been designed to be executed in iron with oxidation treatment, which gives the sculpture a final appearance with a non-uniform tone that seems to have different patinas. This variation in the tones of the rusted iron gives the work a special definition and depth. The aim when designing the piece has been to give it simple, clean lines that allow the folds to achieve three clear objectives: stability, presence and highlighting the figure of the person being honoured in a significant way, achieving maximum prominence. The iron plates are 20 mm thick and have been cast and welded using casting and welding techniques.