Guggenheim Museum Bilbao: Architecture & Design
General Documentation: Cataloging
Name of Building: The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao
Architect: Gehry
Chronology: 1991-1997
Location: Bilbao
Style: Deconstructivist
Brief: Materials: Limestone, glass, and titanium
Building System: Industrial materials with CATIA, a computer program that enables the creation of any form in architecture.
Formal Analysis
Support Elements and Supported Elements
The museum claims not to contain a single flat surface throughout its structure. Part of the building is crossed by a high bridge, and the exterior is coated with titanium plates and limestone, which was very hard to find, similar to that used to build the University of Deusto. Designed by computer, the walls are made of glass, and the metal structure is mounted in a complicated manner.
Spacious Interior
The interior is articulated from the huge lobby, 50 feet high, around which all three levels of exhibition halls revolve. These are connected by curved walkways, stair towers, and glass elevators. The total exhibition area is 11,000 m2, distributed over a total of 19 galleries. Ten have an orthogonal plant, while the others have an irregular new plant with all the forms marked on the outside. The latter stands in the great hall, known as the Fish Room, 30 feet wide and 130 feet long. Located on the ground floor, the space’s large columns bear the enormous weight. Almost all rooms receive natural lighting through overhead skylights.
Outer Space
The building offers an outdoor area built on two types of interconnected volumes: orthogonal ones covered with limestone and curved ones covered with titanium plates. They are combined together and through the glass curtain walls that give transparency to the museum. The glass from the rear lobby is highlighted by an impressive canopy that forms a terrace, which is based on a huge stone column. The main entrance, accessed through a staircase descending the slope which is saved on the square, is hidden. This allows the architect to create an overview of the whole, rather than a single dominant focal point.
Style
Although built after the design of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (1989), Gehry bases structural and aesthetic points of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao on Deconstructivist theories linked to the late-eighties French philosopher Jacques Derrida, focusing on the fragmentation of form. Its complexity meant that the architect used a computer simulation program capable of calculating building structures to withstand the impacts and total costs, opening new doors to architecture based on technological advances.
Interpretation
Content and Meaning
Views from the river show that its organic forms have been identified with a boat, paying homage to the port city that welcomes it. Following the sea analogy, the bright exterior panels are reminiscent of the scales of a fish. He was criticized by many artists who feared that his personality would exceed that of the works.
Role: Its main mission is to expose any contemporary artistic expression in its rooms and to organize equity and traveling exhibitions from other museums of the foundation. However, some say that the best work of art is the museum itself.