The Bilbao Experience 1
Photo by Robin Hill (c) 2009
October 22nd 2009…Bilbao, Spain. Frank Gehry’s masterpiece is a profoundly unnerving experience that I’m still trying to process….there’s no doubt its absolutely brilliant and is a work of Genius, but like many works of Genius…its got its issues…and not being given to sycophancy there are a couple of things that drive me crazy…but I’ll get to those later. Firstly its clearly apparent to me that the Architect seriously ‘Let go’ of any previous notions in Architecture with both this building and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which is its spiritual sister. It is without doubt a paradigm shifter…there’s Architecture before the Guggenheim Bilbao and there’s everything after…Gehry is clutching onto soaring ladders, making a leap into the infinite and risking everything…and the result is breathtaking and heart rending and full of delight. The photo above was made a few hours ago…the light had been shifting all day and by the time dusk came around the clouds rolled in supplying the photo with a dramatic ceiling and giving movemet to the building which was already in full flow. Dynamite! In fact ‘dynamic’ is the one word I would choose above all others to describe this building, this sculpture, this poem of structure, this delicious concoction of outer planetary imagination. Strange that I could also use those words to describe the other Frank’s masterpiece, the Guggenheim in New York, but the feeling there is completely different….The Guggenheim in New York has a deeply mystical transcendant quality to it… a reflection of the Architect’s philosophy…the Guggenheim in Bilbao feels sensual almost in a sexual way, like an explosive orgasm that’s ripe and fecund and life affirming…can’t say if that particular quality is a reflection of Gehry’s philosophy, but there is this enormous feeling of just letting go of all previous thought…the details such as the processional steps being exactly the wrong distance apart for graceful descent and ascent can be brushed aside by the sheer magic of the place…its totally self referential…but in a really good way…and having said that…even though the building brings a lot of attention to itself…it still knits in well with the rest of the urban environment…the curvature of the River Nevion is repeated in the curvature of the front of the building and the Puente de la Salve Bridge serves as a serious backbone to the whole composition without distracting the Architecture. Processional steps to the north and south serve to connect the rest of the streetscape to the museum and one can see in the ‘Bilbao effect’ in full force in the surrounding area, which has and still is enjoying an urban renaissance. This aspect of the building really sold me, because I was not expecting a self referential building to blend in with the rest of the urban drama.