Graced with the marvelous new Guggenheim Museum, this city of one million is finally overcoming its reputation as a bourgeois, business-minded industrial center. The economic engine of the Basque country, Bilbao has been making people wealthy since the 16th century, when its shipbuilding industries and coastal location made it a key trade link between Castile and Flanders. The city has bought respectability by investing heavily in the arts and its own infrastructure. Economic booms in the 19th century bestowed wide boulevards lined by ornate buildings; 20th-century success has showered the city with a new subway system, an overhauled international airport, a new bridge, and a stylish riverwalk project, all executed by renowned international architects. However, it is the Guggenheim that has fueled Bilbao’s rise to international prominence.
Frank O. Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao can only be described as breathtaking. Lauded in the international press with every superlative imaginable, it has catapulted Bilbao straight into cultural stardom. The US$100 million building, with its undulating curves and multiple levels, resembles a scaly fish or a ship about to set sail on the river beside it. The amazingly light and airy interior features a towering atrium and a series of non-traditional exhibition spaces, including a gargantuan 130m by 30m hall. The museum currently hosts rotating exhibits drawn from the Guggenheim Foundation’s collection but will gradually acquire its own international sampling of 20th-century works.
