Caring Hollywood star Brad Pitt has visited an urban renewal project in northern Spain.

The Inglorious Basterds star took time out from his family, who are staying in their luxury chateau in France, to meet local officials in the industrial city of Aviles in northern Spain designed by famed Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

The actor, who is also taking part in a project to rebuild Hurricane Katrina-scarred New Orleans, toured the site where the Oscar Niemeyer Cultural Centre is being built, Aviles mayor Pilar Varela said.

Pitt, 45, went round the site with a group of architects.

The building is being erected in a port area in what was the centre of the city’s steel industry in the 1950s before it fell into decline.

It will feature an auditorium, a sight-seeing tower, an exhibition centre and a large outdoor square that will serve as a venue for cultural activities when it opens in 2010.

Local officials hope it will revive Aviles the way the opening of the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim museum helped transform the Basque city of Bilbao from a rusty industrial backwater into a cultural capital over a decade ago.

Varela said: “He is interested in supporting the project, the cultural as well as the architectural aspects.

“He was especially interested in the aspects of the project aimed at boosting environmental sustainability. This is why Brad Pitt has came to visit the site.”