Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao

Photo: Arch. Roberta Falcone

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a contemporary art museum located in a building designed by Canadian architect Frank O. Gehry. It is located in Bilbao in the Basque Country, in northern Spain. The Guggenheim in Bilbao is one of the various museums of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

It was opened to the public in 1997 and since then has hosted exhibitions of works of art belonging to the Guggenheim foundation and also itinerant exhibitions. The museum quickly revealed itself as one of the most spectacular buildings of deconstructivism [2]. The museum occupies a total of 24,000 m², of which 10,600 are exhibition spaces, and is made up of a series of complex volumes, interconnected in a spectacular way. The impact with the surrounding environment is certainly strong, but at the same time not such as to provide disturbance, indeed the imposing structure blends with the context thanks to its sober elegance also due to the materials with which it is covered.
The museum's design and construction perfectly follow Frank Gehry's style and methods. Like many of his previous works, the main structure is radically sculpted following almost organic contours. The museum, say the designers, does not have a single flat surface in the whole structure. Part of the building is crossed by an elevated bridge, and outside is covered with titanium plates and limestone blocks from the quarries of Granada .... Wikipedia ... >>

Photographs courtesy of the architect Roberta Falcone