The Bilbao Effect is when powerful architecture holds the potential to transform a sleepy city into a bustling metropolis.
There are several areas around the world that have benefited economically from the investment in attractions and museums. These are the structures that give people incentive to visit and give the local population more opportunities.
The Bilbao Effect in Bilbao Guggenheim
Known as one of the largest museums in Spain, architect Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao boasts a spectacular building in the style of deconstructivism, a postmodern movement known for its asymmetry and lack of continuity.
The museum, built from glass, titanium and limestone, houses large scale modern works by contemporary artists from around the world. With its mesmerizing aesthetic and exhibitions, the museum also helped transform the city of Bilbao in true Bilbao Effect manner.
Since deindustrialization, the city, which used to be the center for factories and offices, had begun to quickly lose its luster. The museum was the economic cure that Bilbao needed – in its first three years, the museum brought the city about $500 million in economic activity and $100 million in taxes. Its new energy gives tourists a reason to visit and learn more about the historic city.
V&A Dundee Museum
The design museum’s architecture is built to look as if it emerges naturally from the riverside it rests near, just like the cliffs of Northeastern Scotland.
The exhibits explore Scottish culture –– past present and future. The designers behind the building is award-winning Japanese architects Kengo Kuma & Associates. Kuma envisioned Dundee as the ‘living room of the city’ where people feel welcome to come explore and learn about the history of the area.
The Dundee Waterfront project has manifested the Bilbao Effect by attracting business, retailers interested in investing and transforming the city. These expansions have opened up opportunities for job hunters looking to settle in the hospitality, residence or financial sector.
Sydney Opera House
This multi-venue performing arts center is one of the most famous buildings of the 20th century. From its inception in 1957, is was not formally open to the public until 1973. The white concrete shells on the building’s roof and its location on the water add to its recognizability.
The iconic site was likely one of Australia’s most lucrative investments. Besides its celebration of culture, art and music the opera house brings in over 700 million dollars to the area each year, and is valued at over four billion dollars.
The venue will remain as a timeless international attraction for people eager to look closer at its mesmerizing ceramic-tiled exterior and visit inside its vast concert spacious concert halls.
Quadracci Pavilion at the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin
Milwaukee began as nothing more than a small port town by Lake Michigan, with little to attract visitors and multiple failed attempts to build sustainable art galleries. Once the museum became successful, the area became a bustling center for tourists and visitors.
A first aspect of the Quadracci Pavilion that first attracts viewers is its wings, which were made by pouring white concrete into distinct wooden forms and molds. The wings are moveable, and span out 217 feet during the day or during inclement weather, almost as protection over the arched structure.
The museum, which was completed in 2001, houses a reception hall and over 20,000 exhibits.
Ordos Museum by MAD architects- Inner Mongolia, China
MAD’s museum, commissioned in 2005, was built to celebrate the history of the Mongolian culture, and to blend its ancient traditions with China’s current modernization.
The design for the 41,000 square foot building was inspired by the landscape of the nearby Gobi desert, whose brown rounded hills are strikingly similar to Ordos’s orbitous shape.
The skylights of the cavernous interior offers viewers a look at its six exhibition levels of collections, which relate to the local history of Ordos and the surrounding areas.
Ordos is bigger than it looks; the building’s design was also influenced by architect Buckminster Fuller’s famous geodesic dome, created in the 1940s, whose shape offers maximum volume and takes up little surface area. Visitors are drawn to this delightful contrast of past and present in a country full of rich history and innovation.
Luma Tower by Frank Gehry – Arles, France
Gehry’s twisting tower of aluminum tiles has a majestic vibe that manages to stand out from the glistening silver clouds and from the shorter and more mundane buildings that surround it.
Set to open in the spring of 2020, the tower is built with a concrete core and a steel frame that sits on top of a circular glass platform. The interior of the site was inspired by the Roman amphitheater in Arles, which was built in 90 BCE.
The building’s design mirrors the overhang of judding rocks that are found near Arles. Those who live in the port city credit the attraction for most of the prosperity it has already brought.
Abu Dhabi, Jean Nouvel Louvre
When Louvre was creating this art museum in the manmade Saadiyat Island, he wanted to keep in mind a significant aspect of the area’s culture –– the dome. With that effort in mind, he built a weblike protective dome around the museum that possesses a more modern twist to the classic Arabic symbol.
This creation causes a dazzling light pattern to fall about the museum’s walls like flecks of golden stars or raindrops. In this way, the building itself has become almost as enticing to visitors as the exhibits it houses.
Louvre has been praised by other architects, and the museum’s director, for his ability to create such a museum that also attracts a contemporary audience, which is important in terms of keeping the culture and artistry of the museum alive.
Upcoming Guggenheim Finalists in Helsinki
Located near the edge of the Baltic Sea, the Helinski Five timber towers, created by haascookzemmrich STUDIO 2050, were the first of the finalists in the competition; the light from the towers casts an ethereal glow that stretches across the coast surrounding it as a beacon that beckons visitors inland.
The second finalist was SMAR Architecture Studio, which created not one but two museums –– one for visitors in the winter and one for the summer. This way, the institution better accommodates the viewer.
The third finalist, Fake Industries Architectural Agonism, created a museum space more dedicated to its interior, and praised for its ability to house a wide variety of audiences, who can visit rooms tailored to their tastes and climates.
Asif Khan, the fourth finalist, created a “quiet animal,” a glass-skinned building with four levels, the third of which is just one “super space” that makes visitors’ navigation through the site a more intuitive experience.
The fifth finalist, created by Agps Architecture, created two spaces in one; the first is for exhibitions, and the second is a public forum space that encourages interaction, dancing and socializing amongst visitors. The winner of the competition was Moreau Kusunoki Architecture’s piece, Art in the City.
What made this piece stand out was its physical link to the city, specifically to the port promenade and the pedestrian footbridge, which makes it a key spot for visitors and an important cultural landmark for Helinski.