Bilbao's Big Bibelot

Insight on the News, Feb 21, 2000 by Charles A. Cerami

An art museum that looks like a voluptuous metal flower has riveted the world of art and architecture and is turning the once-drab city of Bilbao into a world-class tourist attraction.

Visitors to the new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, can count on one thing -- the building is as gorgeous as its press notices have been effusive. The fanciful titanium creation of architect Frank O. Gehry won't disappoint even the most jaded aesthete -- and it's turning a dour and wounded city into one of the most desirable tourist destinations of the new century.

Yes, the people of Bilbao gratefully acknowledge that their astonishing good fortune has come from the other side of the Atlantic -- from the Canadian-born Gehry and the Guggenheim Foundation of New York that runs the museum and lends it its name. But how did this former steel town, brought low by decades of guerrilla fighting by Basques seeking separation from Spain, find the will and the money to commission a world-class building of this stature? The tale of Bilbao should be noted carefully by the Serbs, Kosovars and other separatists the world over: The yen for self-determination is tempting but, in terms of human happiness, reasonable compromise is preferable to war.

As far back as their history goes, the tough, proud Basques, with their unknown origin and unique language, have refused to be absorbed by larger nationalities. Within that cantankerous group, the residents of Bilbao have carried on another offensive to make their city the capital of "Basque Country." Bilbao, chartered in 1300, has enjoyed periods of prosperity as a great fishing and whaling port and in the 19th century was a center of iron and steel production. The city withstood sieges by neighbors, including France; until this century, it could boast that it never had been conquered.

That changed when Francisco Franco grew more determined than any Spanish king to crush the Basques. The dictator's armies marched into Bilbao on June 19, 1937, and the vibrant city became a dark, sullen town overnight. Franco attempted to erase all traces of Basque history and culture -- wall plaques in the city's splendid opera house were covered up, and the Basque language was dropped from school curriculums. But Basque separatists revived toward the end of Franco's rule, intensifying their terrorist attacks in a new drive for independence from Spain under King Juan Carlos.

The terrorist patriots, however, overplayed their hand. One of their big mistakes was to milk the wealthier residents of Bilbao for more and more funds. By the 1980s, these rich people were so fed up paying out cash to ward off death threats that many boarded up their homes and moved to Madrid. Still, the fighters for independence persisted in using strong-arm tactics to gain support from the middle class. By then, Madrid had sweetened its offer to allow the Basques autonomy if they would lay down their weapons and agree to remain part of Spain. The residents of the region turned against the terrorists and voted peacemakers into power by a landslide.

In the early 1990s, Bilbao's city officials were ready to start turning peace into prosperity. Knowing that many U.S. cities had revitalized themselves by opening new museums to lure affluent tourists, they talked with Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, about operating such a project in Basque country. The dynamic Krens already had expanded the New York-based Guggenheim art empire to outposts in Venice and Berlin. He was quick to seize Bilbao's offer and, by 1994, had arranged a competition that led to the appointment of Gehry to design the museum, which opened in 1997.

Although Gehry had been well-known in the architectural world for years, with major projects in Europe and Asia as well as in North America, he never had imagined that his name would become a household word as he approached his 70th year. Probably no architect in history -- not Bernini nor Bramante nor Frank Lloyd Wright -- has been praised as lavishly as Gehry. An unassuming man with an engagingly simple manner, he denies that his total work deserves comparison with Wright's enormous production, but he admits the museum changed his life. "It's a funny feeling to have people come up to me and say, `Can I touch you?' I usually say, `Sure, go ahead.' And when I talk to clients about a new project, I can see they're disappointed if my proposal doesn't look like the Guggenheim. They finally break down and use a technical term on me, like, `Couldn't you do one of those swoopy things?'"

When Gehry appeared at the National Building Museum in Washington recently, the massive area was packed elbow-to-elbow with admirers, and the hundreds of people who had bought his book waited in a long line to have him autograph it with his initials -- FOG. But the adulation he receives around the world is nothing compared with the mythic status he enjoys in Bilbao. Don Agustin Martinez Bueno, director-general of the four-star Ercilla Hotel, speaks enthusiastically of the many practical effects Gehry's museum has had. "Since our city used to get mostly business travelers, we were usually quite empty on the weekends. Now with the tourists and the businesspeople who stay over to visit the Guggenheim, our occupancy rate is way up."