The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao seems to have as much of a storied past as the city it's located in. The choice of Bilbao for the museum was part of an effort to revitalize the Basque Region's struggling economy back in the early 1990s. These initiatives were also seen as a means of increasing the chances of the city's metropolitan area becoming the major reference point for European regions on the Atlantic seaboard.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao got under way in February 1991. High-ranking representatives of the Basque authorities contacted the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation with a proposal for the latter to take part in the moves to revitalize Bilbao and the Basque Country. The trustees of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation welcomed the proposal, as they had recently approved a long-term development plan for the foundation involving a number of different centers distributed throughout the world.

Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao: The Art
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has hosted some fine exhibitions since its formal opening in October of 1997. Some of the artists in recent years have included Richard Long, Robert Morris, Louise Bourgeois, Vasily Kadinsky, and Miguel Navarro. Other exhibitions have included American and European post-war art, American pop art, and recent European art.

If you're planning a trip to Basque, Spain, then it's strongly recommended that you plan a day in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The building itself will take your breath away. Designed by American master Frank Gehry, the museum is built on a 32,500 square meter site in the center of Bilbao. One side runs down to the waterside of the Nervión River, 16 meters below the level of the rest of the city of Bilbao, while the other end is pierced through by the huge Puente de La Salve, one of the main access routes into Bilbao.

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