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QUOTE
We don't know anything about Bilbao besides the Guggenheim,” said Luigi Fattore, 28, a financial analyst from Paris, who was taking pictures of his girlfriend under the puppy. As if to underscore the point, they showed up at the museum's doorstep with their suitcase in tow. “We've arrived half an hour ago,” he said, “and went straight to the Guggenheim. Aside from the museum, we don't have any plans.”
Such is the staying power of Frank O. Gehry's architectural showstopper, 10 years after it crash-landed on the public psyche like a new Hollywood starlet. The iridescent structure wasn't just a new building; it was a cultural extravaganza.
No less an authority than Philip Johnson deemed it “the greatest building of our time.” The swooping form began showing up everywhere, from car ads to MTV rap videos, like architectural bling. And in certain artistic and architectural social circles, a pilgrimage to Bilbao became de rigueur, with the question “Have you been to Bilbao?” a kind of cocktail party game that marked someone either as a culture vulture or a clueless rube.
Such is the staying power of Frank O. Gehry's architectural showstopper, 10 years after it crash-landed on the public psyche like a new Hollywood starlet. The iridescent structure wasn't just a new building; it was a cultural extravaganza.
No less an authority than Philip Johnson deemed it “the greatest building of our time.” The swooping form began showing up everywhere, from car ads to MTV rap videos, like architectural bling. And in certain artistic and architectural social circles, a pilgrimage to Bilbao became de rigueur, with the question “Have you been to Bilbao?” a kind of cocktail party game that marked someone either as a culture vulture or a clueless rube.
Bilbao
Wow-Factor museums
QUOTE
The beautification was echoed throughout the city. Traffic circles like Plazas Campuzano and Indauxtu had been transformed into piazza-like parks, with sculptural lampposts, ergonomic benches and ultramodern landscaping. In place of polluting cars, laughing children now use them as impromptu soccer fields.
Casco Viejo was almost unrecognizable. The graffiti had been erased. The stone facades sandblasted. And old butchers shared the sidewalk with H & M and Billabong.
At lunchtime, crowds converged on upscale pintxos bars like Sasibil, grazing on octopus and Iberian ham sandwiches, which were exhibited like jewelry under polished glass cases and halogen lights. After sundown, well-dressed couples strolled through the warren of alleyways and tunnels, now brightly illuminated by cheery shop windows and klieg-like streetlamps.
But the most striking metamorphosis wasn't cosmetic: the Nervión River no longer stank. With the sludge-spewing factories gone and sewage treatment plants installed, the river began to heal itself. It may not be as blue as the Danube (the color today is more like a rusty green), but within an hour of my arrival, I spotted a lone sculler in a red jersey, gliding by a pair of cormorants.
The cleaner water, however, hasn't necessarily brought more tourists upriver. Despite a host of tourist information centers, including a glass shed outside the Guggenheim staffed with professional guides and a rainbow of color brochures, Bilbao remains very much a one-attraction town.
On a cloudless Sunday morning, the Museo de Bellas Artes — with important works by El Greco, Francis Bacon and Eduardo Chillida — was nearly empty, despite a 2001 expansion and being just a quick stroll from the Guggenheim. Maybe that's why the museum closes at 2 p.m. on Sundays. (At least it was open. The city — restaurants, grocery stores, cafes — shuts down on Sundays; everything, that is, except the Guggenheim.)
The Maritime Museum, which traces the city's port and sailing history, was completely deserted, save for the bored-looking woman at the ticket counter. Even the Moyúa neighborhood next to the Guggenheim, which should have benefited from the Bilbao Effect most acutely, is far from tourist ready. There's one postcard store across the street and a couple of hip restaurants nearby, but this residential district is otherwise filled with featureless stucco apartments, five-and-dimes and plain bodegas. A clutch of art galleries have sprung up along Calle Juan Ajuriaguerra, but its proximity to the Guggenheim is merely coincidental.
“There's no art market in Bilboa,” said Javier Gimeno Martiñez-Sapiña, who owns the year-old photogallery20. “I don't think the Guggenheim has helped. It's still very hard for local artists to sell art here. They have to go to Madrid or Barcelona.”
No wonder many guidebooks still devote as many pages to the Guggenheim — reprinting floor plans, offering tips and expounding on the museum's design — as they do the rest of Bilbao. On paper at least, Bilbao seems to have it all: world-class museum, fine Basque cuisine, a rollicking night life and lots of shopping. But like the new bike paths that were rarely used during my visit, the city lacks the critical mass of attractions to take it from a provincial post-industrial town, to a global cosmopolitan city. And in the meantime, it is losing the shabby edge that gave the city its earlier appeal.
Casco Viejo was almost unrecognizable. The graffiti had been erased. The stone facades sandblasted. And old butchers shared the sidewalk with H & M and Billabong.
At lunchtime, crowds converged on upscale pintxos bars like Sasibil, grazing on octopus and Iberian ham sandwiches, which were exhibited like jewelry under polished glass cases and halogen lights. After sundown, well-dressed couples strolled through the warren of alleyways and tunnels, now brightly illuminated by cheery shop windows and klieg-like streetlamps.
But the most striking metamorphosis wasn't cosmetic: the Nervión River no longer stank. With the sludge-spewing factories gone and sewage treatment plants installed, the river began to heal itself. It may not be as blue as the Danube (the color today is more like a rusty green), but within an hour of my arrival, I spotted a lone sculler in a red jersey, gliding by a pair of cormorants.
The cleaner water, however, hasn't necessarily brought more tourists upriver. Despite a host of tourist information centers, including a glass shed outside the Guggenheim staffed with professional guides and a rainbow of color brochures, Bilbao remains very much a one-attraction town.
On a cloudless Sunday morning, the Museo de Bellas Artes — with important works by El Greco, Francis Bacon and Eduardo Chillida — was nearly empty, despite a 2001 expansion and being just a quick stroll from the Guggenheim. Maybe that's why the museum closes at 2 p.m. on Sundays. (At least it was open. The city — restaurants, grocery stores, cafes — shuts down on Sundays; everything, that is, except the Guggenheim.)
The Maritime Museum, which traces the city's port and sailing history, was completely deserted, save for the bored-looking woman at the ticket counter. Even the Moyúa neighborhood next to the Guggenheim, which should have benefited from the Bilbao Effect most acutely, is far from tourist ready. There's one postcard store across the street and a couple of hip restaurants nearby, but this residential district is otherwise filled with featureless stucco apartments, five-and-dimes and plain bodegas. A clutch of art galleries have sprung up along Calle Juan Ajuriaguerra, but its proximity to the Guggenheim is merely coincidental.
“There's no art market in Bilboa,” said Javier Gimeno Martiñez-Sapiña, who owns the year-old photogallery20. “I don't think the Guggenheim has helped. It's still very hard for local artists to sell art here. They have to go to Madrid or Barcelona.”
No wonder many guidebooks still devote as many pages to the Guggenheim — reprinting floor plans, offering tips and expounding on the museum's design — as they do the rest of Bilbao. On paper at least, Bilbao seems to have it all: world-class museum, fine Basque cuisine, a rollicking night life and lots of shopping. But like the new bike paths that were rarely used during my visit, the city lacks the critical mass of attractions to take it from a provincial post-industrial town, to a global cosmopolitan city. And in the meantime, it is losing the shabby edge that gave the city its earlier appeal.
