The Guggenheim revolutionizes Bilbao | fortune
When Frank Gehry (Toronto, 1929) arrived in Bilbao in 1992 to present the model of the project, in pencil with a camera included, of the Guggenheim Museum to the Basque authorities, a group of protesters were waiting at the door of the Stock Exchange building with banners of complaint: “Less culture and more employment”. Roberto San Salvador, professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences and director of the Cities Lab chair at the University of Deusto, remembers it: “Those were difficult times because it was not understood that the creative industry was going to generate employment in a sector that was exhausted, as was the industrial”.
It recalls a city of grays, which in a few years was flooded with the silver shine of titanium and color – the characteristic indigo of the museum offices. But the Guggenheim, he warns, is not understood as an isolated project, but within a context and a city plan. “What it has achieved is extraordinary, since a contemporary art museum is capable of opening a dialogue with the city, in addition to a fascinating economic dimension, since it creates direct employment and helps to expand another sector, such as tourism, which I was touched by terrorism.” Gehry’s building, insisting that it not be in the Alhóndiga, but at the foot of the estuary, has become in Abandoibarra, considered a periphery at the time, the nerve center of the city. “And he will do it again when it is prolonged and develops his new projects.”
To analyze the so-called Guggenheim effect, the mayor of Bilbao, Juan Mari Aburto, recalls the 27% unemployment rate that the city suffered in the early 1990s, and praises the vision of then Lehendakari José Antonio Ardanza, “who, against the whole world, wanted to make a great change in the city with a disruptive project. And he assures that rarely 130 million euros financed through the Basque public arcadesThey were so well spent. “Because they have become an annual contribution of 500 million euros to the city’s GDP, in addition to the creation of 6,000 jobs, and have been the great driver of urban transformation, economic and cultural development of the city.”
Proud of the achievements obtained in this quarter of a century, he pronounces Juan Ignacio Vidarte, general director of the Guggenheim Museum, involved for 31 years in this work, since he was part of the initial consortium of the project. “It has been a catalyst at a time of transition in the city, in addition to providing an international cultural proposal, an urban development of Bilbao was underway”.
Despite the skepticism generated earlier, “because it was a disruptive idea”, he believes that the initially set objectives have been largely met, due, among other reasons, to the fact that the Guggenheim is much more than an architectural icon. “In quantitative terms they have been superior and the economic impact has been important, since, in addition to the 500 million euros it contributes to GDP, it receives one million media visits a year, of which two thirds come from outside the country. Basque”, adds Vidarte, who will celebrate the first quarter of the century next October, with the motto art inspires futureof a museum whose case is studied at universities such as Harvard or Bocconi.
The future lies in continuing to reinvent itself, “maintaining the operating parameters that it has had up to now, since 70% of the resources are generated by the museum itself, its international orientation, in addition to of running red with other museums, like the Guggenheim in New York, and to continue developing an attractive program”. The economic forecast for this year is close to 28 million euros, of which 75% comes from tickets and museum management, the rest is provided by the Basque Government.
Near the Guggenheim, 400 meters away, is the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, in the process of undertaking a major expansion signed by the architects Norman Foster and Luis María Uriarte, and which will be completed in the summer of 2024. He directs it Miguel Zugaza, who states that Bilbao’s commitment in the 1990s to art and culture as driving forces was truly innovative. “No other city of the size and industrial past of Bilbao had attempted it. In this way, it was the first great alternative to the traditional museum in the era of globalization”.
And Zugaza adds, while acknowledging the work of Vidarte at the head of the institution, recognized as one of the benchmarks of world contemporary art, which now, and thanks to the recognized international success of the operation, has served as an example for other bets , like the one in the Louvre Museum, which has opened a branch in the Emirates”. In his opinion, the key was in the courage of the politicians, “who believed in a visionary like Thomas Krens [exdirector y asesor principal de asuntos internacionales de la Fundación Solomon R. Guggenheim]and they were completely right in choosing the place and the architect, and with the efficiency of the Basques, it was done on time and on budget”.
avant-garde architecture
Witness to the change experienced in the city is Inaki Etxeguren, who a year and a half before the opening of the Guggenheim went to work at the Hotel Ercilla, one of the city’s hotel emblems, with half a century of life: “It has placed us on the international map, and it shows in the quality and in the projects that have been developed later”. And he cites the example of the Euskalduna Palace, the Bilbao airport, which serves as a connection to the entire Basque Country, or the firm of international architects in some avant-garde works, such as Cesar Pelli, author of the Iberdrola tower, the towers of the Japanese Arata Isozaki, the city’s subway entrances, the work of Norman Foster, the library of the University of Deusto, by Rafael Moneo, or the Zubizuri bridge, by Santiago Calatrava. “Now we have to continue working for the next 25 years, to have quality tourism, which does not mean having more beds, but offering services, culture, gastronomy and a northern lifestyle,” says the director of Ercilla. With his data it reflects the change: it has ceased to be an independent hotel to become part of the Autograph Collection Marriott chain since 2019. “Before, 80% of our reservations were for corporate travel, and now 30% are from companies and 70% from international clients. We have witnessed the change of the city”.
The Radisson hotel group has just arrived on Gran Vía. “In our strategic growth plan, we identify Bilbao as a European city with great potential as we do not have a type of hotel similar to those we created with the Radisson Collection. It is a city at the forefront of the world in design, architecture, gastronomy and sustainability, preserving the local culture”, he explains. Chema Basterrechea, President for EMEA of the Radisson Hotel Group, who values the great contribution of the museum in these 25 years, “a milestone that commemorates what, absolutely, meant a before and after for this city”.
The hotel chain counts on the chef for its gastronomic project Eneko Atxa, which has opened the NKO restaurant, in addition to the three-star restaurant Azurmendi, in Larrabetzu, on the outskirts of Bilbao. “I have in my memory, when I was a kid and my mother took me to the doctor in the city, that everything was gray, it was as if we always lived on a cloudy day, and I remember when the works of what is now a place of dream”, explains Atxa, who believes that the Guggenheim is a source of pride for Bilbao, “and the first stone of a great work, of a great city, which has opted for culture”.
Because what Bilbao wants is to be the cultural capital of the Atlantic axis. “Culture is transformative, it makes you freer, and it is an economic engine”, recalls Aburto, who launches to the four winds that “Bilbao is small, it has 42 square kilometers, but it is big in ambitions”. With three icons: the Guggenheim, the Athletic and the estuary.
The museum in numbers
The Guggenheim Museum, according to a report prepared by the art gallery itself, based on the results of 2021, the economic impact that its operation generates in the environment are as follows: the total demand generated by its activity in the Basque Country was 195 .9 million euros. Its contribution to GDP has been 172.3 million euros. These figures, according to the aforementioned source, have generated additional income for the Basque Treasury of 26.6 million euros. And the activity of the museum has contributed to the maintenance of 3,671 jobs.
More than 23.7 million visitors have passed through the museum since its opening on October 19, 1997, of which 14.24% were from the Basque Country, 24 from other autonomous communities, and 62 from 36%, foreigners.
Of these, 17.27% were French, 7% British, 6.11% German, and 5.85% North American.
Throughout its history, the museum has organized 131 temporary exhibitions – among them, and until September 19, it has on the poster the Norman Foster exhibition Motion Cars Art Architecture–, 71 presentations from the permanent collection. The own collection is made up of 143 works by 79 artists, being the Puppythe famous flower dog, by Jeff Koons, who greets visitors at the door, an icon of the city.