There is no doubt at all that Gehry's Guggenheim

Museum in Bilbao is one of the most spectacular

buildings of recent years. As the central element

in Bilbao's comprehensive urban renewal programme

the building raised high expectations

from the outset. Its site between river, railway,

bridge and new town makes it a symbol of the

Basque metropolis that can be seen from a considerable

distance. It is both the heart of the city

and a testbed for the arts, representing both public

presence and artistic change.

The process by which it was created demonstrates

the most recent advances in computeraided

design and in material manufacture. For a

long time design and building were broken down

into a large number of individual components.

Gehry's museum unifies this process and is thus

able to create fluent links between architectural

detail and urban impact.

But the innovations do not stop at technology,

they also extend to the way in which the interior

spaces are shaped. These are extremely varied

in form, as the museum is not so much designed

to house a permanent exhibition of the collection,

but to enable artists to create installations. In contrast

with the usual neutral gallery spaces Gehry

offers a whole variety of stages for artistic presentation.

His artist friends have risen to the challenge

of his architecture and are experimenting

very successfully with this new way of showing

their work to the public.