Bilbao City Hall

The Bilbao City Hall features a massive, ornate facade topped by a clock tower that dominates the riverbank. Joaquin Rucoba designed this building in the late nineteenth century on the site of an old convent. When the city held the opening ceremony in eighteen ninety-two, officials discovered that the massive structure had been built on land so soft that the ground floor had already begun to sink. Engineers spent months pumping massive amounts of concrete underneath the foundation to keep it level.