Bilbao lays nestled in Basque country with its river flowing to the Bay of Biscay. Once a dirty shipping port, the city fell on hard times when steel and other industries shuttered their factories. The soot and grime that caked the buildings clung hard to the chock-a-block workers tenements that form the city.
But the city has since seen a revival from tourism owing to a singular building – the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum. Conceived and painstakingly created by the late great Canadian architect Frank Gehry, the museum houses modern art. One can say it’s a work of art in its own right. Gehry’s building is waves frozen in time and its 45,000 titanium plates flash in the Basque sun like the scales of an exotic fish. Gehry himself describes how the planes and curves come together like the mockups he used to create from balls of crumpled paper as a child.
We drove from Madrid to Bilbao, but if you wish, you can take a bullet train there too. The museum falls on the category of a must see for art and architecture lovers alike.
P.S. This building may look familiar to you. It appeared in the opening sequence of the 1999 Bond film, The World is Not Enough, starring Pierce Brosnan. Also, it’s key setting in Dan Brown’s thriller, Origin.
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