1997
The building of the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, built by Gehry in 1997 in Bilbao, was designed by hand, but calculated on a computer. It is a perfect example of virtual architecture. The museum was created by bringing together combinable elements in a way that can be applied to thousands of such museums. The object is amazing and experimental. The Guggenheim Museum is a spatial fantasy, the product of machine processes that have outstripped architectural form. When using technology and equipment, everything loses its originality. The construction became the main attraction of the city, although a quick implementation was possible in a simple confluence of circumstances: the construction coincided with the collapse of the USSR, when the released large stocks of strategic materials were sold out at a low price. In particular, the titanium shell of the museum, famous for its expressiveness, was created from Russian titanium, otherwise the already very expensive building simply could not exist. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is called “a shell of emptiness or walls without a museum.” It is formed by a group of free shining volumes.