To celebrate the museum and its fundamental role as a promoter of art and culture in the world scene, we tell you 10 data that maybe not everyone knows about it.
1. Picasso's inspiration
It is said that, to define the external structure of the museum, Frank Gehry He was inspired by a famous work by Pablo Picasso 1911, The accordionist. Iconic example of analytical cubism, the painting represents a man, sitting, attentive to play a musical instrument. The perception of the subject of the work by the viewer is not immediate; The figure must decipher from a series of geometric fragments, which are nothing more than the different perspectives from which the subject can be observed.
2. The symbol of deconstructivism
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is considered one of the main symbols of the deconstructivist movement, The architectural current that rejects the canonical rules of modernism and embrace plastic and irregular forms capable of creating floating scenarios. The museum, whose fully curved exterior architecture is formed by more than 40 thousand titanium plates, limestone and glass, seems a huge sculpture of organic lines. Before choosing the titanium, 29 different materials were considered, including stainless steel, copper and aluminum. Gehry said: «I spent a lot of time trying to understand the light in Bilbao. The steel I had to use at the beginning did not emit anything when it was exposed to light there. The metal seemed dead under a gray sky. But by chance we discovered that titanium is very suitable for this type of light.»
Anthony Weller / View Pictures / Universal Images Group / Getty Images.
3. The pioneer use of Catia
For the design of the museum's exterior frames, the team of architects led by Gehry used Catia, a software 3D modeling reserved so far for aerospace engineering applications. This allowed Make the elaborate forms of the structure Without incurring prohibitive costs, while fulfilling the calendar and design budget (approximately 90 million dollars).
4. Celebrate the urban and environmental context of Bilbao
The organic form of the museum, which At first glance it might seem a gigantic deconstructed flower, It is actually a tribute to the territory and the history of the place where it is. In fact, the architecture remembers the river context of the city of Bilbao, which makes the museum look like a gigantic ship floating in the nerve river, which flows to its side. Not only that: the materials used in the construction of the museum remember the industrial character of the city, whose most developed sector at the time of its design, in addition to maritime trade, was the steel industry.
5. The work of the La Salve bridge
The Prince's Bridge of Spain, better known as La Salve, built in 1970, acquired a new role with the opening of the museum: it was included within the architectural design, becoming an integral part of the structure. In fact, the museum «hugs» from below, incorporating it thanks to a tower and two elevators that allow direct access. In 2007, with reason for the tenth anniversary of Guggenheim, A work by Guggenheim artist was installed in the viaduct pillars. Red arch of the artist Daniel Buren turning the bridge into a true attraction at the height of the other works outside the museum.