Spain Guide
Euskal Herria: the País Vasco & Navarra
Museo Guggenheim
Address: Ten minutes' walk west of the Casco Viejo
Opening time: July & Aug daily 10am–8pm, Sept– June Tues– Sun 10am–8pm
Price: €12.50, includes English audioguide; under-12s free
Website: www.guggenheim-bilbao.es
Telephone: 944 359 090
Frank O. Gehry's astounding Museo Guggenheim has been hailed by architect Philip Johnson as "the greatest building of our time". Completed in 1997, its construction on a derelict industrial site represented a colossal gamble by the Basque government, which pumped every peseta it could find into a high-risk bid that the showpiece project might stimulate the revitalization of Bilbao. Amazingly enough, it did. A gargantuan sculpture, whose sensual titanium curves glimmer like running water in the sun, it has inevitably overshadowed the artworks it contains.
Cross the delicate arch of the Zubizuri footbridge to approach it from below, along the west bank, or take in the full panorama from across the river before crossing the Puente Pedro Arrupe in front of the University of Deusto; alternatively, for an aerial view, take the ascensor (or seven flights of steps) up to the Puente de la Salve.
While Maman, one of Louise Bourgeois's fearsome spiders, stands by the river, the Guggenheim's main entrance, on the city side of the building, is guarded by Jeff Koons' altogether cuddlier giant flower sculpture, Puppy. Originally installed as a temporary exhibit for the opening ceremony, it became a permanent feature after bilbainos clamoured for it to stay. Once inside, visitors flow seamlessly through the various galleries, crisscrossing the vast, light-filled atrium on walkways. Gehry called the largest room on the ground floor his "fish gallery"; stretching away beneath the road bridge, it's permanently given over to Richard Serra's disorienting sculpture series, The Matter of Time, consisting of eight enormous shapes of rusted steel, coiled and labyrinthine.
The rest of the museum hosts top-flight temporary exhibitions, and also displays a rotating selection from the Guggenheim Foundation's unparalleled collection of twentieth-century art, which features works by all the major modern and contemporary figures, including Kandinsky, Klee, Mondrian, Picasso, Cézanne, Chagall, Warhol, Calder and Rauschenberg, to name a few. One painting, though, is conspicuous by its absence: Picasso's Guernica – in Madrid – whose "return" the Basques have been demanding for years.