The story of this place
By the 1980s Bilbao, a Basque port built on iron, steel and shipbuilding, was gutted by industrial decline, flooding and terrorism. In a daring bet, the city commissioned Frank Gehry to design a Guggenheim museum on a derelict riverside dockyard; opened in October 1997, its swirling titanium curves—said to evoke a ship, a fish, a flower—became an instant icon. Jeff Koons's giant flower 'Puppy' and Louise Bourgeois's towering spider 'Maman' guard it. Visitors and investment poured in, regenerating the whole city so successfully that urban planners worldwide now speak of 'the Bilbao effect'—the power of a single building to transform a place's fortunes.