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Press Room
Martin Aas Visiting Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao - August, 2005, Bilbao, Spain
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry and opened to the public in 1997, was immediately vaulted to prominence as one of the world's most spectacular buildings in the style of Deconstructivism. The museum's design and construction serve as an object lesson in Frank Gehry's style and method. Like much of Gehry's other work, the structure consists of radically sculpted, organic contours. Sited as it is in a port town, it is intended to resemble a ship.
Its brilliantly reflective panels resemble fish scales, echoing the other organic (and, in particular, fish-like) forms that recur commonly in Gehry's designs, as well as the river Nervión upon which the museum sits. Also in typical Gehry fashion, the building is uniquely a product of the period's technology. Computer-aided design (CATIA) and visualizations were used heavily in the structure's design.
Computer simulations of the building's structure made it feasible to build shapes that architects of earlier eras would have found nearly impossible to construct. Also important is that while the museum is a spectacular monument from the river, on street level it is quite modest and does not overwhelm its traditional surroundings. The museum was opened as part of a revitalization effort for the city of Bilbao and for the Basque Country. Almost immediately after its opening, the Guggenheim Bilbao became a popular tourist attraction, drawing visitors from around the globe. It was widely credited with "putting Bilbao on the map".
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is one of the most important ingredients in the plan to redevelop the city of Bilbao. The plan, involving a number of major projects conceived by some of the world's most prestigious architects, The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a modern and contemporary art museum designed by architect Frank Gehry and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. It is built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Atlantic Coast. The Guggenheim is one of several museums of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The museum features both permanent and visiting exhibits featuring works of both Spanish and international artists.
includes the work now in progress to increase operational capacity at the city's port, the revamping of the city's airport, a mission entrusted to Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, a new Conference and Performing Arts Center, designed by Federico Soriano, the construction of a metropolitan railway - much of it underground - designed by Sir Norman Foster, and a new footbridge crossing the river at Uribitarte, also the work of Calatrava.
Birth of an idea
The choice of Bilbao as the venue for one of the Guggenheim European centers is best understood in the context of the initiatives implemented by the Basque authorities as a contribution to the process of revitalizing the Basque Country's recession-plagued economic structure. These initiatives were also seen as a means of increasing the chances of the city's metropolitan area becoming the major reference point for European regions on the Atlantic seaboard
Exhibition galleries are organized on three levels around the central atrium and are connected by a system of curving walkways suspended from the roof, glass elevators and stair turrets. All in all, a spectacular vision that one critic has described as a metaphorical city, where the panels of glass that cover the elevator-well evoke the scales of a fish that leaps and spins, the walkways that climb the interior walls are like vertical motorways, and the plaster curves crowning the atrium suggest the molded ribbing of a drawing by Willem de Kooning. In short, a glimpse of artifice in architectural design taken to its uttermost limits.
Designed by the North American architect Frank O. Gehry, this unique Museum built on a 32,500 square meter site in the center of Bilbao represents an amazing construction feat. On one side it runs down to the waterside of the Nervión River, 16 meters below the level of the rest of the city of Bilbao. One end is pierced through by the huge Puente de La Salve, one of the main access routes into the city.
The building itself is an extraordinary combination of interconnecting shapes. Orthogonal blocks in limestone contrast with curved and bent forms covered in titanium. Glass curtain walls provide the building with the light and transparency it needs. Owing to their mathematical complexity, the sinuous stone, glass, and titanium curves were designed with the aid of computers. The glass walls were made and installed to protect the works of art from heat and radiation. The half-millimeter thick "fish-scale" titanium panels covering most of the building are guaranteed to last one hundred years. As a whole, Gehry's design creates a spectacular, eminently visible structure that has the presence of a huge sculpture set against the backdrop of the city.
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