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The
first great building of the new millennium, Frank Gehry's
masterpiece in northern Spain opened in 1997 and, perhaps created
a new tradition of great Franks designing great Guggenheims (Frank
Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim in New York City in
1959). Not only responsible for putting the city of
Bilbao on the cultural map, the Guggenheim's great success took
the Basque region of Spain from being at constant battle with the
Spanish government over language and customs, to being the toast
of the country and a role model for other cities hoping to capture
a bit of the tourist market. In fact, the transformation was so
pronounced in the Basque Country that it revitalized the economy
of the region (the ship building industry had left the city, and
yet there seems to be something oddly ship-like about the
appearance of Gehry's museum), prompted updating of existing
museums in Bilbao, attracted other big-name architects to Bilbao
(Jean Nouvel and Santiago Calatrava to name two), accelerated the acceptance of Basque culture as
part of Spanish culture, and has made all of Spain more of a
cultural destination than ever before.
But the effect of
this building goes far beyond the borders of Spain, and it's where
Geography, architecture and tourism really start to have fun with
each other. Museums are now the most commonly built civic
structure in the world. Cities from Los Angeles to London are
re-designing old museums and building new ones. Private businesses
and public agencies alike are often combining on these projects
producing unprecedented public/private cooperatives. Cultural
tourism is at an all-time high and more projects by big-name
architects (Rem Koolhaas, Richard Meier, Daniel Libeskind and I.
M. Pei - yes, having a hard-to-pronounce, cool sounding name is a
requirement for being a successful architect) are resulting in a
new (but old) form of tourism dubbed "architourism." In
Las Vegas, casino mogul, Steve Wynn, was set to call his new
casino (the most expensive ever made at nearly three billion) Le
Reve after the famous Picasso that he owns. While the name has
been changed (the casino opened in 2005), a prominent feature will
be the casino's art gallery, and Wynn and his wife have clearly
stated that they wish to bring a bit of class and culture to Las
Vegas. The Guggenheim itself, being a franchise, has started other
museums (London's Tate, for example or Boston's Fine Art) to make
additional locations. All of this activity has become known as the
"Guggenheim Effect" and over seventy cities world-wide
are vying for a new Guggenheim. Who's next? Think South
America...Rio's Guggenheim is set to open in 2006.
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