Happy 14th birthday, Guggenheim Museum!

Today, October 19, but fourteen years ago, the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum opened its doors for the very first time for the public. Designed by architect Frank Gehry, the building has become an architecture icon worldwide, and by now, the crisis seems not to affect its activity. An average of one million people, most of them foreigners, visit every year Bilbao’s most famous museum.

Throughout the last fourteen years, 14 million visitors have enjoyed arts inside Gehry's titanium-building. Spite of the crisis, about 1 million visitors are expected this year, 6% more than in previous expectations.

If the Gehry's construction seemed astonishing before its opening, Juan Ignacio Vidarte’s emotion on that October 19th ,1997 was no trifle. Due to his relation with the Guggenheim Foundation in New York, today’s Director General of the musem, Vidarte, was refuted in the beginning, but he overcame every reticences and became the precursor of the so-called Bilbao Effect, a risky bet in time of crisis.

Apart from the public and private involvement, the key to success of the museum is its high-quality artistic program. Nowadays, many European cities are trying to build their own Guggenheim museum, but it all depends on Bilbao’s approval and Helsinki is the only one that seems to have any chance.

Even in the Basque Country there are several proposals to build other musem of this kind, but there is a lack of consensus among institutions. Furthermore, the agreement renewal will be debated with New York’s foundation in 2014.