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Any art tour of Spain is incomplete without a visit to the most talked about 20th century structure — the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. A magnificent example of avant-garde architecture is the museum building on the riverside of Nervion. One is struck by the beauty of horticulturist skills in the form of flower-studded bear at the entrance. Undoubtedly it is the first halt for the photographic session for any visitor.
Designed by Canadian architect Frank Gehry, the building is an extraordinary combination of interconnecting shapes. Orthogonal blocks in limestone contrast with curved and bent forms covered in titanium. Glass curtain walls provide the building with the light and transparency it needs. The glass used is treated to protect the interiors from heat and radiation. The stone, glass and titanium curves have been designed with the aid of computers. The broad descending flight of stairs to the main entrance is an unusual feature for any institutional building and has been the response to the differences in height between the level of the river and the level of the city centre. It has also enabled the building with a surface area of 24000 sq metres and more than 50 metres high to be slotted in to the city landscape without it towering over the neighbouring buildings. The rough-looking fish-scale titanium panels covering most of the building lends the surface more tactility and beauty. Gehry’s design creates a spectacular eminently visible structure that has the presence of a huge sculpture set against the backdrop of the river and buildings in the city centre and the slopes of mount Artxanda. One of the most idiosyncratic features of Gehry’s design is the atrium. The glance at this extraordinary building at the range of worlds it conjures up is enough to make us see that we are facing a completely unconventional form of architecture.
Cutting-edge technologies, unusual materials and daring forms have all combined to make what is undoubtedly the last great museum of the 20th century. The entire structure comes out alive against the backdrop of the Puente de La Salve, the river, the buildings in the city centre and the slopes of mount Artxanda. As one steeped inside, one was lucky to see the large scale exhibition of one of the most ambitious private contemporary art collections at world level. Greek collector Dimitris Daskapoulous has gathered more than 400 international works of art. The exhibition entitled ‘The Luminous Interval’ includes 60 works of art rendered by nearly 30 artists such as Mathew Barney, Louise Bourgeois, Rober Gober, Mike Kelley Paul McCarthy etc. The Matter of Time is Richard Serra’s most complete rumination on the physical space and the nature of sculpture in the Arcelor Mittal gallery. Permanently installed in the largest gallery of the Franck Gehry designed museum, seven new sculptures join Serra’s Snake created for the museum’s inauguration and comprise a site specific installation of a scale and ambition unrivalled in modern history. The Matter of Time enables the spectators to perceive the evolution of the artist’s sculptured forms, from his relatively simple double ellipse to the more complex spiral. The final two works in this evolution are built from sections and spheres to create environments with differing effects on movement and perception. These sculptures create a dizzying, unforgettable sensation of space in motion. Indeed it is a must see for the study of modern and contemporary architecture.
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