Ibon Areso

Ibon Areso is an architect and politician who graduated from the School of Architecture in Barcelona in 1970. After becoming the Basque Government’s Deputy Minister for Land Planning in the early 1980s, he was hired in 1987 to run the Municipal Office. In that role, he oversaw the preparation of the new General Urban Development Plan for Bilbao, which set up the guiding principles behind the transformation of the city. In 1991, Areso was elected as the Bilbao City Councillor and appointed as Deputy Mayor of Bilbao and, concurrently, the Head of Urban Planning Division. After the death in office of Mayor Iñaki Azkuna in March of 2014, he served as the Mayor of Bilbao until June of 2015.