Did Guggenheim Museum change Bilbao?
Pedro Ruiz Aldasoro
We have a self-government. We collect our taxes and rule ourselves. We can rule our buget in a different way then the rest of the Spain. So our authorities decided that Bilbao has to change. There were plans how to change the city and how it should go to the river. Before it used to be a last port like a Rotterdam. It was a small Rotterdam of course. The city used to have all the factories along the riverside.
Another topic was that people were changing their mentality. The decided that they do not want to work in a steel company. They prefered another kind of jobs. They wanted more creative jobs. So all these things were put together and the museum was moving the people. And people were showing the museum an opportunity. It was a signal like a flag to put it all together. And they decided that this is really good. At the very beginning they were very worried. Why we have to put our money in the museum? We have a 25% of unemployment. People need more schools and support for the families who have no money. But we explained them that the cost of the museum was something between 6 or 7 kilometers of a highway. Then they could understand what we were talking about. So suddnely people believed that this is good.
And then we attracted other people from outside the country. We had new hotels, new fashion business. They all came here because they thought that it was a good city. Then came also Arata Isozaki. I met him because he was one of the candidates to build a Guggenheim Museum. I met also many other world top class architects. They all came here to our city. The city has changed. But not everythink is good. We have a changed. And the change has always a collateral effect. Bilbao is a beautiful city but it is a city for old people. We have a hardware. But we need a social software that could move the city in another direction.
Bilbao had urban plans for big development in 10 or 15 years from the middle 80‘ to the first decade of 21st century. They thought that the plan was to build things along the river. But the museum provoked a big effect. It suddenly changed minds of people and made them realize that culture is not only a thing for pleasure. It is only businness, is only opportunity, is only a new way to see a life.
In that moment the economical cycle changed. There is grow and grow and grow. And since then people have more confidence.
The museum had a big impact in the media. And that draw in all the intellectuals. They thought that if Bilbao has build this museum the people must to be very clever, very rich and have a lots of opportunities. They thought in that way. That is moreless like a bank, bank has very beautiful buildings. And sometimes there is nothing inside. Only debts. In reality the there is very complicated balance between actives, passives, assets and depts. There happend something similar. They had a museum of art, building and money. This is a parallel. But the people thought in different way. If we put a museum then the things will go in this direction. But it will never happen again. Never. You have luck only once in a life. They have tried a Guggenheim in Berlin. It was a very small museum and it has disappeared. In New York there were two museums and one had to close. So I do not think that the museum has the effect. It was the moment it was the tipping point. In my opinion that is the real explanation. There is no if you put a museum the city will grow, you will have more business and people will be more happy. It is not that easy.
It is a big mistake that the people are looking at planning of the cities through museums. Yes, museum can help the city. But it can help only if it is surrounded by other things, and it has an ambience. I think that the ambience is the best think. If you have the good ambience people want to go there. In my life I can not remeber visiting any city because of its museum. I travel through Europe frequently. At least once a year I travel to see the cities but I never went anywhere because of the particular museum. If I am there I will go to the museum only if it is interesting.
But the Guggenheim Museum is special. It is more then a museum. It is a sculpture. It is a sculpture or a tile on turn of the centuries. It is the first museum of the 21st century.
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