Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Frank Gehry'S Titanium Clad Museum Of Modern And Contemporary Art, Opened 1997, Which Gave Its Name To The Bilbao Effect In Urban Regeneration · Bilbao, Basque Country

The building that made a city, and the only museum whose name became a term in urban planning. Bilbao in 1990 was a post-industrial port with a dead river, falling population and a shipyard economy that had gone; the regional government gambled on commissioning Frank Gehry, the museum opened in 1997, and the flow of visitors it created paid back the construction cost within years and dragged a metro, an airport terminal and a cleaned-up riverfront along with it. Planners have called that the Bilbao effect ever since, and have mostly failed to repeat it. The building is titanium-clad and curved so that no two views of it agree, and it reads differently in every light; the outside is free and is arguably the whole point. Inside, the permanent holding is thin by great-museum standards and the temporary programme carries it, along with Serra's vast steel spirals, which are permanent and are the best thing indoors.

Abandoibarra Etorbidea 2, Bilbao, Basque Country, 48009, Spain

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The structure: open daily in high season and CLOSED ON MONDAYS for much of the year, which is the single most common wasted journey here, with last admission shortly before closing. The atrium and shop keep slightly different hours. TEMPORARY EXHIBITION CHANGEOVERS CLOSE WHOLE FLOORS for weeks at a time and are not always obvious when booking. The exterior is public and lit at night. Confirm the Monday closure and the current programme.

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