Until now only about 1 percent of the foundation s holdings have been on view at any one time, mainly in the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Built in 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright s corkscrew-shaped building is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of 20th century architecture. Guggenheim Director Thomas Krens wanted an equally distinctive building for Bilbao. I believe that this building in Bilbao will have the same impact. Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry beat out two others in a 1991 competition for the job of designing the Guggenheim Bilbao.
Critics now seem to be in a competition of their own to come up with words of praise.
The enormous boat-shaped gallery is a nod toward Bilbao s past as a center of shipbuilding and trade. Richard Serra s work is not so much in physical space but in its weight. Very few museums are designed to be able to receive steel plates of ten, twenty, thirty, forty tons. This museum has been designed to be hospitable to works of that kind of scale that you ll be able to take a tractor trailer truck into the main gallery carrying a 70-ton sculpture, if need be. By some accounts the building s light-filled central atrium evokes the Guggenheim, New York s world famous rotunda, both inside and out.