Snakes and Fishes: Scroope 10
Variously described as "the twisted wreckage of itself,"[1] "the greatest building of our time,"[2] and "a disposable tinfoil extravaganza,"[3] Frank Gehry's new Guggenheim Museum shimmers in the Spanish light as its sinuous titanium forms stretch along the Nervion River beneath the unforgiving steel structure of Bilbao's La Salve bridge. Conceived as an iconic flagship for the city's regeneration, the intimate relationship between building and bridge introduces the notion of the inter-dependency of cultural and physical infrastructures as fundamental to the success of an international financial and commercial centre. Furthermore, this apparent incongruity between architecture and context highlights the peculiarity of establishing a museum of contemporary art at the centre of a city suffering from the fallout of industrialism; moreover, this is the new Guggenheim Museum, establishing a European outpost for its New York-based multinational expansion in what has been termed the 'Wigan of Spain'. The alliance of Frank Gehry, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and the city of Bilbao results in a cross-over impact whereby each creates opportunities upon which the remaining two parties capitalise in order to fuel and support their own intentions and motivations. Together they form an hermetic circle, at the centre of which lies the architecture of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. It is the nature of this centre that demands attention.
Capital of the Basque region of northern Spain, Bilbao was founded in 1300 as a trade and fishing town on the banks of the Nervion River. From that time its development was characterised by an oscillation between progress - in the form of industrialisation - and the conservation of the unique local customs and traditions of the Basques. The transformation from small trade and fishing town to mercantile port reflected the impact of the fifteenth-century increase in shipping, iron-works, and manufacturing around the Bay of Biscay. This industrialisation continued until the nineteenth century, establishing Bilbao as the most important port and commercial centre in the province of Vizcaya. Technical education and financial institutions flourished, culminating in the 1850Õs and 60Õs with the increase in foreign trade and the foundation of banking and credit facilities including the BBV (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya), today one of the largest banks in Spain.
In Basque Nationalism, Stanley Payne describes the impact of such developments on the autochthonous individualism of the Basque people: Ò[The] process of economic and social modernisation was a challenge to Basque identity, institutions, and values, for it brought industry, major urbanisation, large-scale non-Basque immigration (at least into Vizcaya), and growing atomisation of society...In a general way, nationalism is born of the intersecting of traditionalism and modernisation, and of the need to adjust to and achieve the latter while preserving as much as possible of the former.Ó[4] This paradox between modernisation and tradition - and the plight of the Basque nationalists - continues within the contemporary regeneration of Bilbao. Following an economic crisis caused by the demise of the heavy industries, the city is basing its development on historic strengths in the financial and commercial sectors of society, aiming to establish itself as a "modern European city."[5] In an increasingly global economic and cultural context, however, Bilbao is taking its transformation one step further, and is intent on composing an identity for itself based largely upon high-profile architecture and institutions. Fundamental to this desire are the proyectos, a set of architectural proposals by leading Ôbrand nameÕ architects such as Foster, Gehry, and Calatrava, which take one of three interdependent forms: commercial, infrastructural, or cultural. Thus it is that GehryÕs Guggenheim, as an emblem of BilbaoÕs cultural foundation, is being marketed as the image of a progressive city-state seeking foreign investment.
Architecture, under the pressures of capitalist profit and social and political acceptance becomes susceptible to what Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer have termed the ÒCulture IndustryÓ, and to its consumption and fetishisation[6] as a commodity. Adorno and Horkheimer describe the value of a commodity as a combination of exchange value and use value. In a media age dominated by mechanical and technological reproduction, first-hand experience of architecture is overwhelmed by its consumption via the media image. Frank GehryÕs Bilbao Guggenheim Museum was published in over 700 different newspapers and journals throughout the world before it had ever opened. It is expected to attract 500,000 visitors a year, but this number pales into insignificance in comparison with the number of people ÔconsumingÕ the building through its photographic image. Such a mode of experience has prompted Fredric Jameson to comment that ÒI think it is an appetite for photography: what we want to consume today are not the buildings themselves, which you scarcely even recognise as you round the freeway.Ó[7] This concentration on image is perpetuated in buildingsÕ reproduction in magazines. Gehry has commented that: ÒArchitectural magazines do not present projects in the context, but like sculptures.Ó[8] In this separation of the building from its context, the photograph concentrates solely on the aesthetics of the building and, furthermore, any plasticity becomes secondary to this two-dimensional formal composition. Added to this is the notion of Òbuildings that seem to have been designed for photography,Ó[9] the architects of which have succumbed entirely to a field dominated by the image. ÒSo it is that in architectural histories and journals, we consume so many photographic images of the classical or modern buildings, coming at length to believe that these are somehow the things themselves.Ó[10] This image consumption signals the dissolution of the importance of the utilitarian qualities - the use value - of the work. Use value is superseded by pure exchange value: ÒThe cultural commodities of the industry are governed...by the principle of their realisation as value, and not by their own specific content and harmonious formation.Ó[11] The commodity is then fetishised for its exchange value, and it is this fetish character that is sought in the work.
This fetish character carries potentially serious consequences for architecture when examined in relation to the quest for the identity of a city such as Bilbao, and that of the Basque region. In such a situation governed primarily by an economic profit motive, the fetish character of architecture induces a perpetuation of sameness and standardisation as undercurrents of Ôthe newÕ. Architects names are associated with a trade-mark image, which in turn is seen as a representative symbol. Meier thus becomes associated with civic pride and the museum, Calatrava with infrastructure and transport terminals and bridges, Foster with progressive concrete, stainless-steel and glass ÔsketchesÕ, and Gehry with adventurous flamboyancy in the form of art galleries. ÒIf the real becomes an image insofar as in its particularity it becomes as equivalent to the whole as one Ford car is to all the others of the same range, then the image on the other hand turns into immediate reality.Ó[12] Expectation with respect to the dehumanised, iconic image that the architect will produce, and the architectÕs compliance with this desire, feeds back into and perpetuates the culture industry. Adorno and Horkheimer argue that this fetishisation of cultural commodities results in the sacrifice of individuality and the debasing of humanity, leading to what Paul Ricoeur has termed a "global mediocre civilisation."[13] The impact on the city of the Culture Industry and the associated branding event in architecture can be seen in schemes for the regeneration of Barcelona, Paris, Frankfurt, and of course Bilbao. Umberto Eco has argued that Òin an exposition, architecture proves to be message first, then utility: meaning first, then stimulus...in an exposition we show not the objects but the exposition itself. The basic ideology of an exposition is that the building and the objects in it should communicate the value of a culture, the image of a civilization.Ó[14] There would appear to be a phenomenon of contemporary Ôexposition citiesÕ which reinterpret many characteristics of the original Great Exhibitions and World Fairs. The competition between industrial nations has been superseded by a media-driven competition between cities and their financial, economic, and commercial sectors. Additionally, Bilbao 2000 illustrates a shift from the promotion of national pride to that of a mixture of city and Basque pride.
This regionalist promotion has precedent in the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 Paris Exposition Universelle, where (predominantly Spanish) modern artists were commissioned to join the RepublicÕs fight against Franco and his regime during the Spanish Civil War. The pavilion included sculpture by Julio Gonzalez, Pablo Picasso, and the American Alexander Calder, and paintings and murals by M’ro and Picasso. The works by the latter artists embody the plight of regionalism under Fascist rule, with M’roÕs ÒLe FaucherÓ (The Reaper) - a representation of a Catalan nationalist song later banned by Franco - and PicassoÕs ÒGuernicaÓ . Recognised as one of the masterpieces of modern painting, ÒGuernicaÓ depicts the devastation inflicted on April 19th 1937 with the saturation bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German planes. The Times explained how ÒGuernica, the most ancient town of the Basques and the centre of their cultural tradition, was completely destroyed...by insurgent air-raiders.Ó[15] Despite FrancoÕs out-spoken support for Hitler and Mussolini - he was named the Ôchild of Hitler and MussoliniÕ - the rest of Europe saw SpainÕs use of culture to oppose Fascism as an embarrassment, and did nothing to prevent the Franco regime from continuing its domination until its ultimate success. The precedent was set, however, for the use of the arts to foster national - and especially Basque and Catalan regional - unification, Picasso's ÒGuernicaÓ surviving as a reminder of the importance of regional diversity as representative of national democracy and heterogeneity, and of the destructive nature of the Fascist dictatorship. In a similar way to this appeal for foreign aid in the plight of regionalist identity, the Guggenheim's involvement in Bilbao's regeneration signals a concurrent intention to strengthen the traditions of the Basque region.
However, many residents of Bilbao have expressed disgust that $100million should be spent on an art museum - moreover an American art museum by an American architect - but the money spent is almost insignificant in comparison with the value of the publicity gained. By offering itself to the world's media, Bilbao is intending to encourage foreign investment and tourism, establishing a self-perpetuating economic growth. Again, the Basque traditionalists feel threatened by such growth involving multinational companies, viewing it as a destruction of the region's local heritage, and the acceptance of the notion of the 'Global Village'; parallels can be drawn between the growth of industrialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - and the associated immigration and challenges to identity and values - and the current growth in the financial and commercial sectors of society. As a response to this threat of globalisation presented in the form of the Guggenheim, ETA[16] - a violent faction of the Basque Nationalist Party - launched a terrorist attack on the museum. In the days leading up to its inauguration, the Guggenheim was closely guarded by the Ertzaintza, the Basque police force. In a routine check on a van unloading pansies for Jeff Koons' sculpture 'Puppy', JosŽ Mar’a Agirre - a member of the Ertzaintza - was shot by an ETA gunman; Agirre later died in hospital. In the event, he prevented the potential destruction of the Guggenheim Museum, and the loss of many more lives: the soil holding the pansies for 'Puppy' contained grenades to be detonated during the Guggenheim's opening ceremony involving the King and Queen of Spain. Perhaps ironically, the only significant effect of this failed attack was the perpetuation of the media propaganda event surrounding the opening of GehryÕs museum.
However, there is another side to this argument which is only apparent on visiting the museum and experiencing its interaction with the city, people, and exhibitions first-hand. In this respect, it would appear that the circle formed by Gehry, Guggenheim, and Bilbao has two competing and yet interdependent centres: as well as the constraints imposed by the Culture Industry, the alliance of the three parties offers opportunities which have resulted in an architecture of outstanding quality.
Gehry explains
how "to be at the bend of a working river intersected by a large bridge,
and connecting the urban fabric of a fairly dense city to the riverÕs edge with
a place for modern art is my idea of heaven.Ó[17]
The museum is based around a primary mediating sequence between the business district of the city and the Nervion River, and is seen as a key component of the future redevelopment of the river-front area to the east and west. The primary public sequence begins in a new plaza, descends to the main public entrance, continues into the court[18] - the centre-piece of the design, and an interior public ÔroomÕ - and arrives finally in the Temporary Exhibition gallery, the largest space of the museum and, at 30m x 130m, the largest single uninterrupted gallery space in the world. This gallery passes underneath the bridge, culminating in a sculptural stone-clad tower on the east side of the site. The remaining nineteen gallery spaces are arranged in separate but inter-dependent sequences revolving around the atrium, and consist of regular orthogonal stone-clad forms, and titanium-clad curvilinear forms, with glazed interstices.
The initial impression of the building is that of oneness, deriving from Gehry's integration of the museum within the dynamic of the site, the combination of materials and spatial and formal fluidity uniting the building into an overall composition of frozen movement. This highlights GehryÕs interest in the city as a collection of sculptural forms: Ò...the point is that if there is any thread of continuity in my view of Ôthe cityÕ it stems from the fact that IÕve always thought of the city in sculptural terms and been interested in how the forms of the city create patterns of living...the city is itself a sculpture that can be composed and in which relationships can be established.Ó[19] This reading of the city has developed into the language which at present characterises Gehry's architecture. At Bilbao this has resulted in a work of unprecedented formal freedom, aspiring to capture the fluctuating energies of the site in a frozen moment: ÒI was just trying to get a sense of movement...a subtle kind of energy. And making a building that has a sense of movement appeals to me, because it knits into the larger fabric of the city...Buildings are a part of the city and it changes; thereÕs a transient quality.Ó[20]
These notions of movement and transience are focused in the court, the social centre-piece of the museum. This space conveys the feeling of interstitial external space defined by the gallery forms rotating around its perimeter. The court is sub-divided by the insertion of plaster, titanium, stone, and glass pieces, resulting in an emphasis on a vertical spiralling of forms. These variously house stairs, elevators, and gallery spaces, and express one of GehryÕs primary ideas on the application of sculpture to architecture: ÒTo say that a building has to have a certain kind of architectural attitude to be a building is too limiting, so the best thing to do is to make the sculptural functional in terms of use. If you can translate the beauty of sculpture into the building - whatever it does to give movement and feeling, thatÕs where the innovation in architecture is.Ó[21] Gehry has achieved this kind of sculptural functionalism in the court, creating a space imbued with a dynamism reminiscent of Frank Lloyd WrightÕs central, top-lit spiral in the New York Guggenheim, although, at 55 metres, BilbaoÕs is over one-and-a-half times as high. Daylight is introduced through the glazed gaps between the gallery forms, and in the glazed Ôrose-budÕ which forms the vertical culmination of the space, offering constantly changing lighting conditions, the complexity of which are added to by the multiple reflections off the glass scales of stair and elevator forms. Direct and reflected light play against each other on the curved surface of the plaster forms, lending the space a sense of immateriality and transience. Additionally, the court demonstrates the emphasis upon relationships between scales, from the scale of the city to that of a human. The court is defined as negative space by the basic Ômassing diagramÕ of the building which refers to the urban scale of the Puente de la Salve and the surrounding city blocks. This initial design ÔmoveÕ organised the required volume of space into three solid blocks, appearing in the final design as the Temporary Exhibition gallery to the east, the western restaurant, shop, and gallery wing, and the southern wing of rectilinear galleries and administration offices. The fragmentation of these masses into the titanium and stone forms of the galleries follows from the process developed in his earlier works. This Ôpulling apartÕ of the established order breaks down the ÔmassingÕ response into pieces relating more to the human scale, adding a texture to the museum where larger buildings act as a backdrop to smaller sculptural elements. In the court, this allows a freedom in composition which can result in chance relationships in the juxtapositions between forms and scales, such characteristic juxtapositions continually relating the smallest scale - whether of art or of the building - to the urban scale of the buildingÕs spatial distribution, situating the participant in a constant relationship with the city.
Parallel to this play between scales is the situating of fragments within the whole composition and spatial continuity. The external impression of unity is initially contrasted with an internal sensation of fragmentation, in which individual galleries constitute parts of spatial sequences which appear as distinct with respect to the primary public sequence. In actuality these gallery sequences inter-relate in three dimensions to create an internal coherence related to that of the external composition. This is strengthened by the changing experience of expanding and contracting space within these sequences, which forms a continual spatial flux, utterly related to the external formal and material oneness. This spatial flux constantly refers the participant to the verticality of the court, which forms the internal and external culmination of the museum, serving to maintain the integrity and identity of this public institution within the city. Furthermore, an engagement in the internal relationships between galleries and sequences informs an understanding of the individuality of the external forms, continuing the building's participatory ambiguity between fragmentation and oneness.
The building gradually reveals itself through its complexitites and ambiguities, and through its relationship to the art-works on display. In a twist of fate, PicassoÕs ÔGuernicaÕ was to be moved from its present home in the Prado in Madrid to the Bilbao Guggenheim in time for its inauguration; however, in the event it was viewed as too delicate to transport. It would have been situated in a space on the second floor of the museum, currently housing work by Damien Hirst. This gallery is open to the court, linking a quite intimate space with the courtÕs vastness, and to the urban scale of the city: it would be an apt position, existing as a culmination of the museum experience, uniting art, architecture, and social and political history within the city.
Central to the contradictions and incongruities embodied in the Guggenheim is the recurring Basque paradox between progress and tradition, and the corresponding conflict between global homogeneity and regional individualism. Ultimately, the museum must be seen as embodying both sides of this conflict in a subtle dialogue, which can only be understood through an engagement with its architecture. It is this provocation of engagement and participation - grounded in a physical and cultural contextuality - which affords the architecture its autonomy and strength. The potential for this type of engagement, and the 'reading' of the architecture by the participant, refers back to Frank Lloyd Wright's intention that the spatial structure of the art museum should affect people's perception of art. Gehry seems to have taken this idea to its ultimate limit: with its intense reciprocal relationship with the social and cultural life of Bilbao, the potential exists for architecture to affect not only the perception, but also the conception of art.