Museum and Iberdrola Tower, unwavering neighbors of Bilbao
Steel was the first choice. A material closely linked to this city, to this estuary, to our history and roots. But ffinally, it was titanium. Because Frank Gehry thought to compose a new architectural partition with 35,000 pieces of a metal that changed color in the gray days of Bilbao. a metaphor of the transformation of the Villa. In those gray days, of sirimiri, so ours, its hue becomes golden.
The place of its emplacement could not be other than Abandoibarra. As if it were a need to be reborn. An exhausted Bilbao after the crisis of the 70s and 80s met its river againa. In those lands where the industrial past became the effort, the work and the commitment to grow, in a way of life and development of the Biscayan capital. 25 years ago we looked at that estuary again, to give it the prominence that it always had in the history of Bilbao.
With that new look came a structural change in Bilbaoof Bilbao men and women, of our coexistence between tradition and the avant-garde. A symbiosis of the new and the old. Of the past and the future.
The Guggenheim museum was andThe beginning of an urban and architectural regeneration. October 1997 will be marked on the calendar as a symbolic milestone of that reinvention. And the need to move forward, to forge the future anew, will pierce through the city.
The steel then took shape in another symbol of the city. Steel and Crystal. 8,500 tons of steel and 5,000 panes of exact glass. In 2012 Torre Iberdrola was inaugurated, the work of the architect César Pelli, and another reflection of the ‘new Bilbao’ although anchored to its history.
Since then, As good neighbors, we share the enthusiasm to improvethe commitment to carry the name of Bilbao, Bizkaia and Euskadi around the world, the effort to collaborate and contribute to society, culture, the environment and the Basque economy.
Iberdrola had been clear since that October 18, 1997 that it wanted to accompany the Guggenheim Museum on its journey. Neighbors and friends. We are strategic patrons since its birth carrying out a patronage action that materializes in a very special way in the permanent collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. We have witnessed great initiatives and exhibitions: Eliasson, Hockney, Basquiat, Giacometti, Viola, Bacon, Neel are some great examples. I would highlight two: The most recent, Motion. Autos, Art, Architecture with a large number of visitors, and the closest to our own history, Bilbao and painting, a suggestive account of another process of modernization of our city, that of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, told by the impressive list of artists that emerged in his environment in that period.
And precisely that, transformation, looking to the future, is what the Guggenheim Museum or the Iberdrola Tower symbolize. Both buildings are anniversary. Silver anniversary, one, and a whole decade, another. At Iberdrola, we will continue accompanying the Guggenheim Museum in its successes and we will continue to carry the name of this city with pride throughout the world. From culture and from the commitment to the green economy. Zorionak, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao! me
Advisor to the Chairman of Iberdrola and member of the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao