Guggenheim Museum by Frank Gehry

Building: Guggenheim Museum
Location: Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao Spain
Year: 1997

Architects: Frank Gehry

Set on the edge of the Nervión River in Bilbao, Spain, the Guggenheim Museum is a fusion of complex, swirling forms and captivating materiality that responds to an intricate program and an industrial urban context. With over a hundred exhibitions and more than ten million visitors to its recognition, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao not only changed the way that architects and people think about museums, but also boosted Bilbao’s economy with its astounding success. In fact, the phenomenon of a city’s transformation following the construction of a significant piece of architecture is now referred to as the “Bilbao Effect.” Twenty years on, the Museum continues to challenge assumptions about the connections between art and architecture today.  In 1991, the Basque government proposed to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation that it fund a Guggenheim museum to be built in Bilbao’s dilapidated port area, once the city’s main source of income. Appropriately, the museum became part of a larger redevelopment plan that was meant to renew and modernize the industrial town. Almost immediately after its opening in 1997, the Guggenheim Bilbao became a popular tourist attraction, drawing visitors from around the world.

The riverside site is on the northern edge of the city center. A road and railway line is to the south, the river to the north, and the concrete structure of the Salve Bridge to the east. Making a tangible physical connection with the city, the building circulates and extrudes around the Salve Bridge, creates a curved riverside promenade, and forms a generous new public plaza on the south side of the site where the city grid ends. The building alludes landscapes, such as the narrow passageway to the main entrance hall reminiscent of a gorge, [2]or the curved walkway and water features in response to the Nervión River.   Although the metallic form of the exterior looks almost floral from above, from the ground the building more closely resembles a boat, evoking the past industrial life of the port of Bilbao. Constructed of titanium, limestone, and glass, the seemingly random curves of the exterior are designed to catch the light and react to the sun and the weather.  
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