The Legendary Building That Saved a City (sort of)
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
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Most people think this building saved it's city. The building is a branch museum of the famed Guggenheim, designed by Frank Gehry. The city is Bilbao Spain. And, this $100 million dollar building, paid for by the Spanish government, couped its cost in just 8 months. Today it generates around $300 million per year in tourist revenue. But, the building didn't do it all by itself. Some believe it's just the icing on the cake of a plan that had been baking for years. This video tells the story of the Guggenheim Bilbao and tries to get to the bottom of what exactly allowed this building to be such an unmitigated success while so many other copycats have failed.
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Architecture with Stewart is a UA-cam journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
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Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
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I've been in Bilbao once. The city for sure got my attention because of the museum. But I would never have traveled there just for the museum. The beautiful landscape of the river valley, the metro to the rugged coast of the bay, the great Basque food, the incredibly pleasant evening strolls along the cleaned river and the city streets, full with chatting people and many dogs, and last but not least a visit to the fantastic football stadium were all at least as memorable for me as the afternoon I spent in the Guggenheim. Conclusion: the Guggenheim works as a great advertisement only because it advertises a great city.
Thank you Werner! That conclusión is the perfect synthesis to my previous comment. There was no t magic in the museum, the magic was already here in different forms of energies.
Same architect of this museum, Frank Gehry, also designed the Walt Disney Arts center opera house in Los Angeles and is very similar.
This was almost exactly my experience. The river, circle parks at intersections, and attractive people with dogs. I recommend a visit.
Don’t forget the old town square , with its traditional bars and world class pintxos
Rocky Balboa also saves his city
I love how clean the city looks and even though the building and trains are over 20 years old, it looks like they have been very well maintained. I think the oversight of the funding and care necessary to maintain a building and city are key to its lasting success and quality.
How something build 25 years ago is "old".
Bruuh i feel attacked😂
@seth davis Great point!
Here is a constrasting situation: ua-cam.com/video/IGGTE6I8wEE/v-deo.htmlm22s
It’s a Basque thing. Cleanliness, hard work, planning, sucking it up. A contrast to inner-city “Gimme free stuff” bullshit.
@@busterbiloxi3833 I do not think you know the meaning of "inner city", explicit and implied, if you are using it for Spain.
I lived in Pamplona, Navarre 25 years ago, just next to Basque Country (worldwide known by Festival of San Fermín). They are culturally the same as basque, in fact, many consider themselves as Basque. It's exactcly the same: everything is beautiful, with a unique architecture (perfectly balancing the old with the modern), everything works fine, everything is extremely clean, one of the most developed parts of Europe (should they be a country, it would be the richest in the world). Man you could breathe History there. And the landscapes are indescribably beautiful.
My grandparents bought a flat in the building across the river (at 0:01 ) about 40 years ago. He was really into the whole industrial/shipping vibe of the area. I grew up watching the museum get built from their living room, for 10 years straight Bilbao was continously under construction. This video brings back a lot of memories. :)
@Debed They probably bought it at the end of the 70s/early 80s for less than a 1M pts (6.000EUR), now it is probably 100 times that price. But if you account for inflation probably it is like 10 times the value or something like that.
As a basque that suscribed to your channel mostly for your excellent videos on american architecture, this video is such a nice surprise!
You do not have tapas, you have pinchos! The architecture of the Basque County is truly amazing, and I also greatly appreciated this video ^.^
Bilbao is freaking amazing . I LOVED it. Stunning. The French tried the same trick at Arles , it failed
I love Spain
I watched today history video how american bomber dropped a nuclear bomb on Spain soil because of faulty airplane, it was just one from dozen accidents but are Spanish population was informed? They say mushroom don't happen, but like a whole farm field become radioactive, some soil removed somewhere...
@@fontenbleau yes they were informed. Watch Manuel Fraga swimming in Palomares´ beach to demonstrate the public that the water was not radioactive.
This was the most interesting video from you I’ve seen (they’ve all been interesting, though!). This is the story of how urbanism can be a success if the whole of a city, its people, its cultures, its history, and architecture are all taken into the equation. That’s not easily done, and helps explain why the examples you noted of other cities that tried to put up an spectacular building, failed to replicate Bilbao’s success.
An example of how other cities tried to take the Bilbao approach but missed the many details is Valencia and the City of Arts and Sciences. It's on an even larger scale and an impressive architectural achievement, but has had many problems. Aside from the major cost overruns and issues with materials that didn't age well and building designs that aren't a good fit for what they're being used for, the city wasn't able to connect it to the metro system until last year. While it's still an impressive project on its own, the many smaller issues add up.
@@echeblog Some cities have had success to some extent though. Sydney, Australia. Just mentioning the name we think immediately of the same building. (I like to focus on the positive).
To Mr. Hicks, thanks for this video. Everyone who posts content on Nebula plugs the website. There are so many documentaries here already on youtube it seems useless to have to pay for such a service. And for people so good at making videos, it seems odd that no one, including yourself, has done like a short commercial on youtube to plug the documentaries. Or does youtube prohibit this? That would seem odd.
(Or should do let Netflix did here in Japan, we got 1 month free. After 3 weeks Netflix sent an email reminding us that our service would be cancelled in one week. Same 2 days, 1 day, and the day of cancellation. I was really impressed with this instead of the old strategy hoping people simply forget to cancel. Disney did that to us. I've heard that Netflix in the US has a lot more content than Japan. I usually watch it every night, youtube in the afternoon).
Love your videos here.
@@rabbit251 i LiKe tO fOcuS oN The pOsiTiVe 🤡
@@rabbit251 Sure, my example was just from the same time period, same country, but didn't have the confluence of factors that made Bilbao's experience so impressive.
Grear video Stewart. Bilbao has long been a vacation destination for us, maybe we’ll finally go. A few years I saw the video biography on Gehry. He made an interesting comment, he said he was basically a modernist, but because of the computer wasn’t constrained to rectangles and squares as I assume Mies was.
Bilbao is a lovely destination vacation, with or without the Guggenheim.
Its incredibly cool that you're focusing on some different cities. I love all the insights on Chicago architecture, but this is amazing too (and really cool to see a video of a building I've been to!)
The mans gotta teach during the school year.
love basque spain - hope you got to see more of it. Gernika, Getaria, San Sebastian, and more.
*Basque country
The Basque Country + Cantabria, Rioja, Navarre (+Asturias, Galicia)(well the north in general) are some of the most underrated parts of Spain. I find a lot of unexpected things in "this region". It's indeed a world apart, a bit unknown, in the middle of a lot that is known
youre 100% correct, i was just there last week and travelled around those regions and its incredibly beatuiful, you wont find that kind of nature anywhere else in Europe.
Please, we have a lot of turism yet. We dont need much more. San Sebastián is full of people same Santander and Asturias in summertime. ¿Galicia underrated? Really? Santiago is still after 1000 years a destiny for thousans of europeans. The weather here keep us apart for that "underrated turism". Great.
Spain, or we should call it "Little Europe"
Lets keep it like that please
What about ñunoa???
I remember studying the Bilbao Guggenheim while I was at college when they were building it. Some of the details like how they deliberately designed the steps to not allow regular pacing. The level of attention to detail blew my mind. It's wonderful to see what a success it's been
Those steps are really disliked by everyone that tries them :D (or at least by all the locals)
I was born in the middle of this revolution. The idea to build the museum was sealed the year I was born, 1991, so I don't remember much of that crucial transformation, even tho the most far-reaching changes occurred later than the museum, well into the 2000s. But a person who knew Bilbao 30 years ago would simply not recognize it today. It is a new city. The important thing for me is that Bilbao has adapted to changing times but has managed to maintain a large part of its cultural and historical heritage. I want to remind you that the Basque Country, despite being within Spain and France, is a cultural nation with its own idiosyncrasy, language, music and mythology. Bilbao, despite having been a focus of immigration and having been transformed in the face of modernity, maintains those Basque cultural hallmarks that remind us of who we Basques are and where we come from. You are welcome here.
Bilbao was on my bucket list since the Guggenheim Museum opened. After such a long time I was in Bilbao a little more than three weeks ago. The museum is as exciting to see in person and to be in as I had always imagined. The city has a great deal to offer other than the Guggenheim. The is the Museum of Fine Art which is not to be missed. Spent two days in Bilbao but another two days would have been better. Thanks for the video. Very informative.
As a former Chicagoan and current Bilbao resident who follows your channel, this video has been such a nice surprise. Great video and hope you had a nice stay at Bilbao!
I lived in Bilbao from 2019-2022. It's a lovely city, and easily one of my favorites.
Another Great Video. This building has always intrigued me. Thanks for the information
We seem to be caught in a vise grip between two architectural extremes; buildings which are entirely utilitarian without any concern to pleasing the soul - the Walmart style, and the entirely ridiculous which pay no concern to utility, both present and future.
Yeah, that’s really well put.
Caught up to all your videos so far Stewart, and to see this latest video is great! There is never a bad video on your channel :)
Slightly Off Topic:
For you cinephiles, you might want to watch the 2002 Spanish move: Mondays in the Sun (Los lunes al sol), the most well known actor is Javier Bardem. It takes place in another shipbuilding town in northern Spain, during the economic downturn this video speaks about. The town is Vigo, Galicia near the Portuguese border.
Watching the construction of this building as a kid is one of the thing that made me become an architect! Hope you enjoyed your stay here! Eskerrik asko! 😉
I was invited to do a talk there and it was a fantastic 4 days. The old city is an adventure to explore.
Ive read that the Bilbao Guggenheim is based on the design language of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Many people think it's the other way around since the Walt Disney Concert Hall opened several years after the museum in Bilbao.
The main reason the Walt Disney Concert Hall was finished later was due to a delay in the financing for it, but the overall design was already done. Had that not been the case the Disney Concert Hall would have opened first
A lot of architects and planners love to rag on Gehry, as if he's to blame for his imitators. But I think that the guy is a true genius. If you doubt it, just go and look over the fence at his old home in Santa Monica. I went to Bilbao a couple of years after this opened and I still remember it as one of the most moving architectural experiences of my life. Only the greatest Baroque buildings in Rome can compare. He made me a lifetime fan that day.
Its also of note that the original project proposal was remarkably a few million under budget
Excellent look at how so many factors (beyond just an iconic building) must come together to revitalize a city. Heading to Nebula to check out your expanded outlook.
I visited the Basque region last year - beautiful places, people and food! Bilbao and the museum are amazing. Loved the automobile exhibit.
I just returned from a trip to Bilbao. Amazing city! A lot of culture, a mix of beautiful old buildings and new modern areas, fantastic landscape, amazing food, clean, nice people. I will most certainly return
This segment is so packed I will have to return several times. Gehry can be annoying, but only a fool would ignore him. I love his gutsiness and inventiveness.
Would love to see you comment on Calatrava’s work!
Very good presentation..have just come across ur Channel..have subscribed for further content..
Highlights the complexity of the changing circumstances of the city of Bilbao..ie the de - industrialization of the city & its transformation/development into a new era..the relevant points are well made..
Another example, although a generation earlier , is the Sydney Opera House...
Thanks from Sydney Australia
Stewart, I really appreciate your videos as they are enlightening , even as a practicing Architect. I wish I was at my alma mater (Cal Poly) now , you actually make Architecture interesting
BTW, where do you side in the one-family vs communal buildings? The first allows nations to not die out as the birth rate gets killed when people move to the flats/apartments in the cities. But the latter case is way more sustainable for the whole humanity economically and is way more ecological.
Wow, the metro/subway system looks so much like the Jubilee Line extension in London. Looking it up, Norman Foster designed it's 2 most iconic stations, North Greenwich and Canary Wharf
And I think he added to Wembley the arch based on the arch that existed in the old San Mames, preserved in the football academy of Athletic Club. The conexion between Bilbao and your island goes back centuries, a win-win relationship
Well researched video! Not surprised to hear that some of these key monuments have been flops, not everything can be iconic
Great story telling
I have Basque heritage and keep telling my kids we need to visit Bilbao to see this. Thanks for all the great background information Stewart. It’s quite fascinating and very beautiful. The urban planning aspect worked (for once) which is significant.
I understand this is an architecture channel but I think there is point that has been missed: the key of the success of the Guggenheim museum, beyond the incredible building, is that it actually has something inside to offer to the visitor: world class curated art exhibitions, that are renewed regularly, something most other cities that have built incredible museums have been unable to secure.
I made a short visit there in the 90's, but what I think is worth mentioning from a tourist point of view is that Bilbao isn't all that far away from San Sebastian, that is an extremely beautiful costal city with a pretty large old town etc.
That and the food culture of both cities makes a big difference, the Basque coast in between is also lovely if you have plenty of time and don’t go on the motorway.
Funnily enough I just came back from my first visit to Bilbao and had many a conversation with the locals on the massive changes the city went through and the fact that the Guggenheim is seen as the crown jewel of it.
It is a wonderful city with a lot of culture and the food is fantastic!
Great info. I visited Bilbao 2 weeks ago.
Somehow during my visit it was clear this museum was build for this reason, even though I didn't actually know.
The depth of it however was very interesting to watch! 👍🏻👍🏻
Excellent video. One of my favourites of yours.
10:00 That is not correct, the tram system was built AFTER the construction of the museum and to be fair it adds very little as it could have been a bus line and it overlaps with the subway. In contrast, the subway was built around the same time as the museum and has proven to be fundamental to the development of the city/region.
Yes, you are rigth. For me, tram system is useful if it's a round circle line that conects all radial Lines, bus metro, or distant suburbs with the center. Here,none of them.
Your voice is amazing to listen to
Looking very nice!@@ Thank you for sharing.
Designed by the guy, built on a computer, cut by a computer, and installed by rock climbers. I freakin' love this! 😂Thanks for sharing! It's beautiful. :)
The fact that the design accounts for local expertise is very based. It's also in unison with the overall goal of the entire project.
I actually wrote my Bachelor Thesis about Gehry's GugMuz. The whole story from start to now is just facinating and reads like an Anime Manga with power up arcs and stuff like that 🤣🤣🤣
I'd live for you to cover the Arcitech and architecture Douglas Cardinal, the guy behind the Canadian museum of History and the American Indian museum in DC. Not enough has been talked about this architecture
He designed a bunch of stuff near where I live too! He's still pretty involved in the scene, and does have a distinct and different ideal about architecture than a lot of other starchitects. And works with a lot of First Nations to make architecture that fits their needs, values and beliefs. Interesting guy.
I remember Frank Geary talking about the Russian titanium and how he got a deal on it!!
It seems that the nineties were the decade of strange museum buildings. The Netherlands had one in Groningen in 1994, and one in Maastricht in 1995. Both designs were not conventional.
The real succes story of the Netherlands is the one of "Boksende Bep", a cigar smoking wiskhy drinking woman who started the Infamous Glorious Allpowerfull Lesbian Family street gang which grew to become the world's most fear crime syndicate in the world
As a lizard person, this building covered in metal gets all hot and toasty. 10/10 would eat people and art on top of the museum any time. Will be returning.
Did you ever hear about the unintended consequences of two of Ghery's other designs? The Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles had such high polished surfaces, it reflected and focused the sun so well across the street - it could melt plastic garbage cans. And The Experience Music Project in Seattle was so slippery that I personally watched the climbers continually slip and fall as they tried to construct it. Smooth metal is like ice when it gets wet. But when it comes to the Bilbao museum, I find the puckering of the titanium panels a little off-putting. Even if that's how they're accommodating the necessary thermal expansion.
Great video! I love your channel so much, and learn so much every time. Keep up the good work !
The Bilbao Guggenheim is so famous, I didn’t know that there was a crappier original Guggenheim in New York
I'm an architecture student from Bilbao that has been following this channel for some time for the quality and the richness of its content, this video is just another part of that great work and I thank you for taking the time for and the care of making it.
I just wanted to point out some things that are normally not mentioned when it comes to the effect the Guggenheim had on Bilbao and the precedent it set for how new urban planning is being developed in the city to this day. Our industrial past, the very fiber that made Bilbao the city it is today, is being destroyed, supplanted and forgotten. Instead of appreciating the literal buildings, technologies and and cityscape left over from the industrial era, they have been torn down or left to collapse. At best a crane or a ship has been preserved as a quirky reminder of what once was. We see the examples from this very same year: the total destruction of the Naval shipyard with its towering cranes, the Molinos Vascos building with its silos and roof in perilous conditions, the whole of Zorrozaurre island with its factories now condemned to be substituted by a bastardized version of the plan that Zaha Hadid made, even the North Station in Saint Sebastian torn down mere weeks ago. We are destroying our identity and our treasures, instead of doing a tactful de-industralization, taking advantage of the richness of our past for contemporary activities, we tear down and erect for the most part indiffirent buildings and promenades.
This following article was written by a Bilbao historian in the wake of the Guggenheim's building, it's in Basque and Spanish, but it's titled "What we lost with the Guggenheim", referring to the amazing industrial works that were torn down to make space for the museum:
www.patrimonioindustrialvasco.com/actividades/lo-que-perdimos-con-el-guggenheim/
I’d love to watch your own take on this, perhaps you should film the areas changing would be cool to see more in depth
Maybe this is a wrong observation, but it seems in Europe you’re less attached to your historic buildings because everything around you is old . In the USA, any building older than 100 years is considered “historic” and the citizens get upset when news of a tear down comes out. I live near Baltimore which has a similar industrial, shipping past like Bilbao. Even though the powers that be grumble about it, a number of older buildings with an industrial past have been saved and repurposed . It keeps a lot of the character of the city intact
everything old is built on top of something older. it's not a big deal that old things are torn down and replaced. not everything old should be held sacred.
Thank you for this contemporary account of the bruises and losses the city has endured because of a single trophy asset.
Por dios quieres seguir con los viejos abandonados edificios en vez de progresar a una ciudad moderna?
My hometown of Edmonton got it's very own Post-Balbao Art Gallery. Designed by Randall Stout, it had increased legitimacy in the vein of all the Gehry-hype. It remains a striking downtown landmark and the radically folding exterior was supposed to evoke the Aurora Borealis. Still, I think the failed projects profiled briefly here prove that copying is never a sure fire route to success.
It’s kind of an oversimplification that when you build a museum, it will definitely attract people to the museum. I think the majority of people , went to the Museum to see the artwork that’s getting exhibited , that’s why when the museum doesn’t have enough funding to purchase enough interesting artefacts, it will just face its doom
This makes me feel good. Good for these peeps.
In 2011 i was in barcelona for a couple of days. had a “free” day. Decided to take a plane. Went to bilbao in the morning, had lunch across the museum. Visited it’s surroundings. Spent all afternoon in the museum. And returned to barcelona for dinner. It was a blast. I was living in france, studying architecture, one of the best experiences from that time. It’s definitely a place I wanna return, and properly visit this charming city.
Can't wait to visit!
I love the R.Serra gallery, especially from the corridor above…
I also have a nice picture with my husband underneath the giant spider of Louise Bourgeois. And the promenade in the mist…
Also in the 1990s modern architecture was emerging and people love to see innovative buildings with futuristic shapes. But now if you want to achieve the same effect, a classical building is more effective as people become more nostalgic.
Great video...interesting story!
I visited Bilbao in 1989. Everyone had given up. The steel industry was gone and all that was left was pollution and rusted factories. ETA was still acting as terrorists and as a mafia. I liked the setting: the Ria surrounded by green hills. This guy arrived and said, more or less, "We are a beauty queen but we need a nosejob". Great mayor.
It is absolutely stunning! I wish I could go back and just spend the whole day gazing on the architecture. ❤🤩
But which design war did it ignite? Love the video, been to Bilbao 5 times.
I loved Bilbao. Had some amazing food there. Would love to return for another visit.😊
Wow, that's crazy... had no idea that this building goes back to 1997! Definitely on my bucket list.
8:11 NOT JUST ARCHITECTURE
Every visionary civil leader should watch this.
We stayed in a Casa Rural overlooking the City. Lots to offer apart from the museum. The industrial heritage has almost, but not entirely, been wiped away. Like all Spanish cities there is great food and drink. Day trips San Sebastian and Santander (both gorgeous ) makes this a great holiday base.
Bilbao has always had a lot going for it:
A beautiful setting in a beautiful region.
The fact that it is an ancient regional capital and has the buildings and culture that go with it.
A historic central district that wasn't destroyed by bombs, architects or developers.
The fact that most industrial /commercial development had (and still has) been located on the outskirts.
A coherent city plan that treasured and preserved its heritage.
Also, it was comparatively poor during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and thereby suffered little during the worst period of urban architecture.
In short, it is a city that has a large, attractive, central area, and which keeps its dodgier districts hidden from the tourists. The Guggenheim is just the icing on the cake.
Love the Basque nation and architecture, so I'm very hapyy with this video, this building was everywhere in the late 90s/early 2000s
I like Bilbao. And I always thought I'd love the Guggenheim, since I'm a fan of Gehry's work. But I was underwhelmed by the building itself. The whole curvy form language didn't yield the type of added value I thought it would. It could equally have been done with any other type of form language - if we disregard the city promotion aspect.
Thanks!
Well, and Spain has lovely weather Bilbao is near the coast, so a little push of something can really drive tourist visits. Building a nice building isn't going to get anyone to Ulaan Bator
Bilbao ir very rainy, atlantic climate. If there a 700 mm of rain per year in average in London in Bilbao it's like 1000 mm and less sun hours than in London also, so... don' expect a sunny mediterranean location if you come here
oh cool, I've been here!
5:35 Love that. They are a proud people!
Spain is also just nice. You can build a nice building in Glasgow but it's still Glasgow.
Looks great. Important takeaway for me is to not just dump a cutting edge building in a run down area and think you’ll get the same effect.
Yeah, they built a metro, a tram line, improved the buses, beautified the river, added enough bike infrastructure for it to be useful and then built the museum.
@@yazanmowed - It takes real vision to improve things in that way, because most decisions are based in the short term. Great to see the vision paying off!
Bilbao Effect is aesthetically really pleasant... But that Iberdrola Tower shows the real change... Iberdrola is the real economic muscle that brings money to Bilbao next to Banking Services by BBVA. If anything, Bilbao is success story from an industrial to a service economy city.
Enjoyed Bilbao. The museum is like living inside a piece of sculpture. Great video!
It wasn't just the museum that happened. Bilbao also experienced a real-estate boom, they cleaned up the river, the buildings, and the ports, built a public transportation system that crossed under the river for the first time, built more bridges to connect historically separated sides, then they expanded the port and opened it to cruise ships and ferries.
Awesome contextualization to a successful building and city
With architecture like this we dont need weird AI image generators.
The human activity gives a window for sound architecture, and architecture is to house the activity provided. Otherwise it will be a relic.
Nice to see Louise Bourgeois' spider sculpture outside the museum.
Fantastic video, similar vibes to @B1M
How is Bilbao able to avoid the over-tourism that so many other cities suffer from? In so many cases, the cities need the tourists for the money that the industry brings in, but then residents and their needs get displaced by tourists.
We all have seen the impact of tourism in San Sebastián, Barcelona ect..and increases every year. Suddenly its more a problem than a good business for the citizens. Where is the limit? And when it's reached? Nobody knows. Meanwhile, it's growing like snow Ball....
And here I had hoped for a global war, not just a design one
Excellent video….makes me want head to the airport and get there for a visit.😊
I'm from Biscay and i don't really know if i agree. Tourism is still a minuscule part of our economic output and industry is still by far the biggest part of our economy. Of course the industry evolved from steel and iron to more advanced forms of industry, but is still the biggest of the sectors. Saying that a tourist atraction saved Bilbao is an spectacular reach.
"Bill's Beer Hall in Bilbao, Bilbao, Bilbao
How they've cleaned it up and made it middle class
Potted palms and ice cream
Very bourgeois, very bourgeois
Just another place to put your ass!" --Kurt Weill
imagine showing this 1:40 to someone who asked for a building with a presence, like these people were living breathing meme.
At least they look better than the boxes. Cities are not just the buildings. They are like living things with many aspects to consider. It wasn't just the building that save the city, but the system in place that built it and the surrounding has part of.
We had a reverse Bilbao effect here in Massachusetts. The Clark Art Institute, a small museum in Williamstown (in the far northwest corner of the state) hired Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando to design two new buildings to add gallery space and other amenities to the existing one. Ando built a severely modernist/minimalist structure. When I first saw the design in 2005 in the form of computer graphics, I wrote a letter to the local newspaper urging the museum not to construct the Ando design, but I was laughed at. Unfortunately the new buildings were very costly with lots of wasted space. Today most visitors agree with me while the intellectual classes still hang with Ando.
It's a horrendously ugly building and making it so ugly made it ten times more expensive than it had to be.
this building is very pretty , but honestly thinking a building a huge building in your city will make it succeed is a pretty stupid thought in and of itself. the building is pretty much a large advertisement for the city , which from looking at this video, i already want to visit. and it will not work if the rest of the city looks bad and uninviting.
A part from the river banks and a few other parts, Bilbao is a pretty ugly city (at least in my opinion).
If you want to visit it, i woldn't dedicate more than a couple of days to it. But there are a lot of smaller, beautiful, lesser known villages near Bilbao.
Amazing mini doc
Thanks!
Thank you!!!
The building in the thumbnail looks like the one from my nightmares 😢
As someone from Bilbao I would like to point one thing: It is better if you don't talk about Santiago Calatraba's bridge (and the new terminal of Sondica's airport either).
I call this the Gaudi effect. Gaudi's art has no economical impact directly, but millions flock to Barcelona to see it, bringing in millions for the city. Frivolity has way more value than most people would admit.
i went to barcelona to tour his work. Im happy that i did! life changing!