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Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Bilbao and surrounding
Architecture,  Museums, Galleries, Exhibitions
Architecture, 
Museums, Galleries, Exhibitions

Have you ever heard of the "Bilbao effect"? That’s what they call a phenomenon when a single building serves as a powerful impetus to develop and transform an entire city. This term originated about 20 years ago when in 1997, a branch of a modern art museum of Solomon Guggenheim opened in Bilbao and changed its life dramatically.

The unique exhibition space arose in the place of a half-destroyed port. On the north side, the River Nervion bends around it; on the south side, there are transportation links; on the west side, there is the large Republic of Abando park, and on the east side, there is the bright concrete La Salve Bridge. Almost immediately after its opening, the museum became a popular tourist site and started to annually attract large numbers of contemporary art lovers from all over the world to the city.

The gallery building in the style of Deconstructivism has become the most expressive one in Bilbao. It was designed by Frank Gehry. Earlier, he became famous as a co-author of the Dancing House in Prague. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao building has been added to the list of his masterpieces and has secured his status as one of the greatest architects of today.

From the outside, the exhibition space looks multifaceted. Some think it looks like a fresh artichoke or a new flower bud about to bloom. Others see a fantastic sea vessel. Still, others are sure that the museum buildings allude to a magical fish, a motif that runs as a through-line in Gehry’s works.

There’s not a single straight line in the design of the museum which creates an illusion of soft movement of its walls. Titanium panels that cover the entire facade and refract the incident sunlight add to the dynamic. The constant game of light and shadows makes the building’s shape look even more whimsical and astonishing.

The relevant works of both local and international authors are displayed in the art gallery exposition. Contemporary installations are favoured over classical forms of fine art. However, here one can see works of such great artists of the 20th century as Salvador Dali, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.

Address: Abandoibarra Etorb., 2

Published by

Valeriia Goriaeva

All content and media files are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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