essays from the program in writing and … · as we move towards a new curriculum for pwr courses...

ESSAYS FROM THE PROGRAM IN

WRITING AND RHETORIC

BOOTHE PRIZE WINNERS AND

HONORABLE MENTIONS

INTRODUCTION

Yirst-year writing, one of Stanford’s oldest traditions, has beentaught since the founding of the University. The current Programin Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) courses provide a setting forstudent writers to focus their intellectual energies on the art andcraft of writing. PWR’s small, seminar-style classes offer students theopportunity to develop their writing abilities in academic analysisand argument with the meticulous and consistent guidance of anexperienced writing instructor.

As we move towards a new curriculum for PWR courses withadded emphasis on oral and multimedia rhetoric, many of ourstudents have already begun to incorporate visual rhetoric andanalysis of film in their research-based arguments. Several of theessays selected as the Winners and Honorable Mentions for theBoothe Prize Publication represent these new opportunitiesfor writers, and it is our pleasure to share them with the largerStanford community.

At the same time, PWR is committed to leading studentsthrough time-tested strategies in rhetoric and composition, includ-ing understanding a writer’s stance, developing a supportableargumentative thesis, deploying cogent proofs, and writing for arange of audiences. Each of these essays demonstrates the wayin which PWR courses guide Stanford’s first-year students inpresenting their ideas with the intellectual rigor and stylistic forceexpected of university students.

As Directors of this Program, we have had the privilege ofreading all the essays nominated for the Boothe Prizes, and we havebeen impressed over and over again by how well these beginningUniversity students have met the challenges of first-year writing. Wevalue the intellectual curiosity, freshness of thought and expression,and engagement with the ideas of others represented in the essayspublished here, and we offer our heartiest congratulations to thesewriters as well as to their instructors.

Andrea A. Lunsford, Director, PWR

Marvin Diogenes, Associate Director, PWR

4 The Boothe Prize Essays 2003

Spring 2002 WinnerEric Yieh

Instructor’s Foreword

Eric Yieh wrote this study of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim MuseumBilbao for my class “The Rhetoric of the Museum,” a class in which westudy how museum exhibits shape our ideas of art and culture. Ericliterally turns this topic inside-out; instead of analyzing what goes oninside the museum’s walls, Eric studies how Gehry’s museum wallsthemselves shape an argument about the complex history of Bilbao andthe Basque Country. Drawing on a variety of cultural references andresearch sources—from Gaudí to Picasso to computer-enhanceddesign—Eric argues that Gehry’s building successfully represents thisvaried history and reinterprets it, providing Bilbao with cultural andeconomic revitalization while articulating the strong independentculture of the region. Most impressive to me, though, is Eric’sskillful use of visual information to support his argument. At a timewhen we’re all trying to figure out what visual rhetoric may be, Ericboth analyzes the visual qualities of this museum and deftly integratesvisual elements into his own argument.

JOHN TINKER

LECTURER, PWR

Eric Yieh 5

BACK TO THE FUTURE: FRANK GEHRY’S

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO

CONTEXTUALIZED

Eric Yieh

T rose, a whale, a ship, and a modern-day Marilyn Monroe—these comparisons and others have been drawn to the GuggenheimMuseum Bilbao (see Figure 1), a building whose unconventionalsynthesis of architecture, sculpture, and iconography seems to defyconventional description. At its apex, smooth, sinuous forms oftitanium and limestone flow towards a center point—tilting, twist-ing, and spiraling upward in an explosion of glass and metal. Atground level, it appears even more futuristic; its staggered, free-formed volumes seem to generate their own shadows and brilliantreflections while its iridescent titanium panels almost blur theboundaries between liquid and solid. Set against the post-industrialbackdrop of Bilbao, a city marked by a rigid rectangular geometryand drab colors, the museum could seem almost out-of-place, evenanachronistic. Yet it appearsperfectly at home, convey-ing feelings of ease and fa-miliarity. Not without con-troversy, the museum hasbeen an object of culturaldebate since its conception.However, under the appar-ent competing chaos causedby its juxtaposition of frag-mented volumes andcurved forms lies a compas-sion for the rich Basqueculture and a consciousnessthat reflects the building’s

Figure 1. Gehry, Frank, GuggenheimMuseum Bilbao, 1997. Source: http://www.artnet.com/magazine/news/cfinch/cfinch8-24-2.asp


regional contexts. Frank Gehry, the building’s architect, neverallows the modernist tendencies of his building to dominate thecity’s landscape; rather, his rich architectural language faithfullyrepresents the city by expressing the past and present character ofits people and culture. By integrating elements of the region’sartistic, political, and architectural past, Gehry’s GuggenheimMuseum Bilbao demonstrates a distinct historical sensitivity toits surroundings, preserving the city’s cultural identity while trans-forming it from a destitute nineteenth-century shipping port intoa prominent twenty-first century tourist destination.

Bilbao, the economic and social center of a region known morefor political instability and terrorism than for its fine art, wouldseem an unlikely location for the Guggenheim Foundation’s lead-ing overseas franchise. Located along Spain’s northern border, theBasque region had always been a fiercely independent province.As the oldest indigenous ethnic group in Europe, the Basquepeople lived uninterrupted in the same region since the beginningof recorded history. Situated in the remote Pyrenées Mountains,they fought against the evils of foreign influence and the threat itposed to their traditions and rural way of life. In an effort topreserve the homogeneity of their culture, they refused to sharetheir language with outsiders or to marry outside of their ethnicity,and for much of their history, they succeeded in this endeavor,enjoying strong degrees of autonomy. However, the victory of theNationalists under Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil Warof the 1930’s brought an end to this seclusion, as the independentBasque province was absorbed by Spain. Afterwards the victoriousFranco used the brutal power of his government to wipe out allvestiges of cultural nationalism in the Basque areas by prohibitingthe use of their language and all other expressions of Basqueculture. The resulting humiliation and desperation of the Basquepeople gave rise to violent outbursts. In response to Franco’srestrictive policies, the terrorist separatist group Euskadi TaAskatasuna (ETA) demanded that the Basque Country be allowedto secede from Spain. ETA advocated an armed struggle to achieveindependence, a movement marked by the routine assassinationof Spanish politicians, policemen, judges, and soldiers. FollowingSpain’s return to democracy in 1980, the Basque region was grantedlimited autonomy, but ETA terrorism continued nonetheless. In itscampaign to win self-determination for the Basque homeland, ETAkilled over eight hundred people over the course of thirty years,

Eric Yieh 7

marking the Basque region as a land of rampant violence andbloodshed (Myers).

The issue of Basque autonomy also played an important rolein Spanish politics as a leading source of national conflict anddebate. The Basque government itself was divided on this front, itsparliament split into two main camps—the Basque Nationalist Party,who advocated a peaceful means of achieving independence, andthe Spanish Socialist Party, whose loyalties belonged to the Spanishgovernment. The Nationalist Party dominated Basque politics duelargely to its policy of moderation, which was expressed, above all,by its opposition to violence. During most of the 1980s and 1990s,the party kept its distance from ETA by refraining from explicitclaims for independence and refused to negotiate with theseparatist group until it renounced its violent ways (Gutierrez 20).However, even as terrorist activity appeared to be waning in the1990s, the Basque region continued to struggle with an image ofviolent political strife. Thus in its endeavor to reform the citythrough international tourism, the Guggenheim franchise in Bilbaohad to overcome the city’s troubled history and terrorist threat.

Under the leadership of the Nationalist Party, the Basquegovernment explored ways in which it could move the country awayfrom the de-industrialization and crippling terrorism that hadeffectively devastated its local economy. Eager to renounce theviolence of ETA, it recognized the need to reform its problematicimage and sought to reshape the region’s public identity with avisible architectural icon. A flourishing shipbuilding city forcenturies, the Bilbao of the 1980s was in economic tatters. At thetime, it faced accumulated debts, a 25 percent unemployment rate,industrial pollution, and outmoded steel and iron trades (Bradley50). The severe decline in the city’s industries gave way to socialand economic crisis, contributing to a state of despondency andmounting frustration among the local population (Baniotopoulou3). However, in crisis, Nationalist Party officials saw an opportunity.As part of an ambitious urban renewal scheme, they proposed toredevelop Bilbao’s cultural sector with a leading museum ofmodern art, one that would transform the city into one of theworld’s premiere tourist destinations. As laid out at its conception,the museum would help the Basque people stimulate theirrecession-plagued economy while serving multiple symbolicpurposes: it would dispel stereotypes of the Basques as intolerantand resistant to change, signify Bilbao’s passage from an industrial


past to a post-industrial future, and establish the city as an emergingEuropean cultural center. To carry out this plan, governmentleaders collaborated with the Guggenheim Foundation in New Yorkto secure a world-renowned collection of modern art, one thatwould bring Bilbao the cultural prestige and steady stream of tour-ism it would need to establish itself as a leading European centerof art. Fully aware of the importance of the museum’s architecturein creating a landmark for Bilbao, Nationalist Party officialsrequested a building so striking and distinctive that it would beinseparable from the city itself, a building “that is for the Basquecountries what Sydney’s Opera House is for Australia” (Romoli122). At the same time, they were deeply concerned with the pres-ervation and promotion of Basque national identity, and the build-ing had to reflect both its natural setting and the character of thelocal culture. Thus, the design had to be modern while blendinginto the visual fabric of Bilbao, a city dominated by the industrialarchitecture of the nineteenth century. Among competing projects,Frank Gehry’s design for the museum was the only one to meet thespecified criteria; its unique combination of futuristic appeal anddistinct cultural sensitivity was exactly what the city of Bilbao neededto emerge as a cultural force in the twenty-first century.

But many of the city’s locals could not appreciate or see aneed for the structure that architecture critics now hail as thegreatest building of the twentieth century. Among Bilbao’s diversepopulation, various factions had different reasons for opposing themuseum’s construction. There were those who questioned theappropriateness of spending so much on a prestige project in anarea of high unemployment. “A lot of people felt it was better tospend the money on ailing industries, or building hospitals, not onculture,” said Juan Vidarte, who directed the museum’s construc-tion (Golub). Others cited Bilbao’s lack of tourist appeal, tiny artaudience, and undeveloped cultural infrastructure in arguing thatthe museum’s vast expense was unlikely to alleviate the Basqueregion’s severe political and economic difficulties (Bradley 52). Artsgroups whose government support was cut to finance theGuggenheim also protested. When it was made public that theinternational art gallery would require 80 percent of thegovernment’s culture budget, there was a public outcry from localartists, writers, actors, and journalists who saw the new Guggenheimas part of a strategy that favored tourism and commercialism overthe needs of working class Basques, the very people the museum

Eric Yieh 9

was intended to benefit most (McNeill 489). At the same time, manyof the city’s inhabitants were offended by the secrecy of the nego-tiations and understandably troubled by their lack of input in thecity’s renovation plans. As one native said, “the negotiations wereconducted in secrecy, at the margin of public debate. There werea lot of things we didn’t know” (McNeill 479). The overridingconcern was that the Basque were “all too ready to be seduced,” thatthey were the weaker partners in a negotiating process that pittedthem at the mercy of an aggressive cultural imperialism (McNeill479). Gehry thus faced the challenge of tactfully weighing thecompeting demands of growth and preservation, of creating amuseum that would attract international attention while assuagingthe concerns of the local population.

Throughout the new Guggenheim one finds elements thatrecall historic building traditions of the past. The sweeping curvesand twisted contours of the museum’s undulating metal forms bringto mind the organic expressionism of Antoni Gaudí’s designs of acentury earlier, also in northern Spain. Gaudí was a leader of thenationalist movement in Catalan, which like the Basques had ex-perienced a repression of culture, and expressed his independentspirit through much of his architecture, which was characterizedby a pioneering use of concrete structure and a technique thatdefied the strict building conventions of the time. A close exami-nation of his Casa Batlló (see Figure 2) reveals how Gehry hasemulated Gaudí’s sense of freedom, adapting traditional architec-tural style to reflect the modern aesthetic tastes of a contemporaryinternational audience. With its graceful curving lines, Casa Batlló,an apartment building constructed in1907, clearly exhibits the influences of ArtNouveau, a movement that emphasizedhumanity’s delicate connection to naturethrough smooth, organic forms. Itsrounded windows and wavelike projec-tions reject the traditional straight linesand flat surfaces that were so prevalentamong the architecture of the time. Alifelike quality is evident everywhere: seawaves appear as irregular curves along theroofline and windows while the jaggednature of the staircase suggests the shapeof seashells. In a similar manner, Gehry

Figure 2. Antoni Gaudí,Casa Batlló, 1907. Source:http://perso.magic.fr/cjupin/ batllo2.htm


seems to draw his inspiration from the complex fractal images ofnature. At the museum’s center, metal and limestone flow towardsa center point, giving rise to a flower of metallic petals that openstowards the sky (Stein 76). With his organic structures, Gehry, likehis predecessor Gaudí, shows a willingness to experiment withnatural forms, to break from the conventional rigid geometry ofmodern architecture. In the process, he pays homage to the greatlegacy of buildings left by a celebrated architect of the past, givingthe Basque people a unifying symbol of civic pride.

A sense of cultural preservation in Gehry’s work becomesfar more tangible when considered from a historical context. Tran-scending the realm of architecture, Gehry’s museum acknowledgesthe struggles, sacrifices, and tribulations of the Basque region’s pastby emulating the cubism of Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica (seeFigure 3). In 1939, Nationalist forces led by Francisco Francolaunched a campaign to control the Basque Country, massacringthe town of Guernica with the aid of German bombs. Picasso’smural painting, named after the decimated Basque town only twelvemiles from Bilbao, was his condemnation of the tragic event. Itis a shocking portrayal of the Spanish Civil War, depicting thehorrific nature of fascist brutality in multiple dimensions of scream-ing black, white, and gray. Amid a dark background of debris,Guernica’s symbolic figures are reduced to a jumbled collage of“paper cutouts resembling the stark images of news photos or flick-ering newsreels” (Oppler 47). At left a paralyzed woman cradlesher dead child, at center a fallen soldier gasps for life, and at righta burning man cries out for help. The distortion of these figures—tortured representations ofthe Basque people—expressesthe inhumanity of war: its cru-elty and senseless destruction.Picasso delivers this powerfulinvective against war throughcubism, a style of painting thatflattens the world into spatialplanes with colliding geomet-ric shapes. To express thetorment of the weepingwomen, he distorts their facialfeatures, shifting their eyes tothe back of their heads; to

Figure 3. Picasso, Pablo, Guernica,1937. Oil on canvas 349.3 x 776.6 cm.Reina Sofia, Madrid.

Eric Yieh 11

convey the screaming of the strickenhorse, Picasso transforms its tongue intoa pointed dagger. In the same fashion,Gehry distorts traditional rectangularvolumes, turning them into sharp, angu-lar projections. His museum’s juxtaposi-tion of fragmented volumes and warpedshapes evoke the same cubism Picassoused to immortalize the anguish of theBasque people in his painting Guernica.

The apparent cubism in the museum’sdesign becomes even clearer upon ananalysis of Picasso’s painting The Accordi-onist (see Figure 4), which exhibits a de-gree of abstraction so extreme that itsprincipal forms are hardly distinguish-able. Here, the human form has beenvisually dissected and reconstructed asan assortment of contrasting rectilinear and curvilinear shapes.Throughout the painting, Picasso merges solid and void, back-ground and foreground, giving a composition that does not appearto conform to the physical laws of nature. In the same manner,Gehry’s disjointed structures, precariously balanced atop oneanother, seem to defy the laws of physical experience, challengingour natural feelings of space, proportion, and order. His buildingexhibits what art historians call passage, an artistic concept firstintroduced in cubism that refers to the apparent interpenetrationof one physical object by another. Like Picasso, Gehry fractures thephysical world into intersecting geometric planes and interpenetrat-ing volumes, referencing Picasso’s cubist geometry while acknowl-edging the historical tensions brought about by the Fascist elementsof the Basque region’s past. Rather than neglect a tenuous momentin the region’s history, he confronts it head-on using Picasso’scubism as a device to echo the discordance and violence that haveindelibly marked the Basque culture. Gehry’s deconstructivism—his dismantling of architectural elements and rearrangement oftheir constituent parts—can then be seen as a modern interpreta-tion of cubism, a radical new architectural style that is distinctlyahead of its time, yet clearly in touch with the past. As Picasso’spaintings seem to stem from a conglomeration of fragmented papercut-outs, Gehry’s Guggenheim seem to take form from a random

Figure 4. Picasso, Pablo,The Accordionist, 1911. Oilon canvas, 51 _ X 35 _ in.Guggenheim Museum NewYork.


piling of disjointed, angular shapes. His design shows noformal patterns or sense of organization, and his unconventionalamorphous shapes appear to have been arranged in the sameindiscriminate fashion as the triangular figures in Picasso’s cubistpainting. But Gehry’s composition, full of colliding angular forms,compound curves, and unconventional juxtapositions, could nothave taken shape without the help of modern technology.

At the time, many contractors and manufacturers claimed thathis sculptural shapes would be impossible to build due to theirgeometric complexity (Stein 77). Catia, a three-dimensionalcomputer modeling system, provided the solution to his problems.Originally developed for the aerospace industry, this specializedcomputer software allowed Gehry’s team to translate mathemati-cally complex architectural forms into constructible fabrication datawith structural integrity. The modeling procedure was simple:cardboard and wood prototypes were made, refined, then mappedinto three-dimensional wire-frame models (see Figure 5) througha digitizing process. Using the data provided by computer analy-sis, engineers were able to identify and support those structuralelements that lacked stability. The resulting bearing structure wasan advanced composite concrete and steel frame model consistingof curving walls of vertically stacked trusses resembling those ofa large roller-coaster (Brandolini 11). Gehry’s rethinking of struc-ture and the space was a groundbreaking achievement for modernarchitecture, and Catia was the driving force behind it. Thespecialized software program allowed the new Guggenheim to beconstructed more cheaply, more accurately, and more quickly thantraditional design methods would have permitted. With the com-

puter as his primarydesign tool, Gehry liftedthe fragmented shapesof Picasso’s imaginationfrom the two-dimensionalplane to the world ofthree-dimensional sculp-ture, transforming distinc-tive artistic conventionsinto striking futuristicforms. His unprecedentedunion of technology anddaring vision allowed him

Figure 5. Catia rendering of GuggenheimMuseum Bilbao. Source: van Bruggen,Coosje. Frank O Gehry: Guggenheim MuseumBilbao. New York: GuggenheimFoundation, 1997.

Eric Yieh 13

to create a decidedlymodern building thatanticipated the newmillennium by radi-cally reinterpreting theartistic styles of thepast.

For the museum’slocation, the GuggenheimFoundation selected a32,700-square-metersite (see Figure 6) inthe heart of Bilbao’smajor business district(Nicolin 13). Bounded on the north by the left bank of the NervionRiver, on the east by the Puente de la Salva motorway, on the southby the city’s highway system, and on the west by a railway station,the site clearly presented Gehry with a number of physicalchallenges. While competing proposals for the museum respondedto these obstacles by overpowering the site, Gehry chose not topreempt it, but to embrace it with his design. His willingness tomeld features of rationalist modernism with elements of vernaculararchitecture is apparent when he states, “To be at the bend of aworking river intersected by a large bridge and connecting theurban fabric of a fairly dense city to the river’s edge with a placefor modern art is my idea of heaven” (Stein 76). On the site of aformer shipyard, the architect builds on Bilbao’s strengths,gaining much of his inspiration from the riverside neighborhoodof angular apartment blocks and dockside goods yards. The

museum’s seamless integration intothe cityscape reflects his keen un-derstanding of the role urban con-text plays in architectural design.

For the building’s exterior,Gehry uses a combination of lime-stone and titanium, both of whichrelate to the museum’s natural en-vironment. Along the south wall,orthogonal blocks of Spanish lime-stone, a tan-colored material, blendsharmoniously with the sandstone of

Figure 7. Detail showingtitanium cladding. Source: vanBruggen, Coosje. Frank O Gehry:Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. NewYork: Guggenheim Foundation,1997

Figure 6. Bilbao build site. Source: vanBruggen, Coosje. Frank O Gehry: GuggenheimMuseum Bilbao. New York: GuggenheimFoundation, 1997.


existing office and apartment buildings that date back to the latenineteenth century. The rectilinear limestone shapes facing the cityreflect a more classical, subdued interpretation of the museum andexpress the continuity of the city’s architectural fabric (Attias 144).The other side of the museum facing the Nervion River providesa striking contrast to the south end with its bright, shimmeringtitanium exterior (see Figure 7). Here, too, Gehry’s sensitivity toBilbao’s visual landscape is manifest and even more pronounced.Metal cladding, the bonding of metallic surfaces to the outside ofa building, had long been a hallmark of Gehry’s work, but here hisapplication of titanium, a material prized more for its tensilestrength than its surface qualities, bears special comment. In con-trast to sandblasted stainless steel, which was deemed inappropriatefor Bilbao’s drab setting due to its high degree of reflectivity,titanium was selected for its ability to appear bright without daz-zling and for its dynamic response to changing lighting conditions.The titanium panels, applied like wallpaper in thin rectangular pan-els to the museum’s exterior, accentuate the building’s sculpturalmasses, which “look immense, but also somehow dimensionless” asa result of their dynamic color, changing from a silvery blue underdirect sunlight to a soft pale gold at sunset (Brandolini 10). Thereflections generated by the museum’s lustrous “skin” are of infinitevariety; they appear as no color and yet every color, blending themuseum into its natural setting by mirroring the sky above and thewater below. Rather than glaring like stainless steel, the titaniumpanels ripple like the waves of the Nervión River, conveying feel-ings of peace and serenity. The building’s iridescent exterior givesit a liquid dimension that makes it seem as though it is emergingfrom the river itself. As a result, the museum seems to be in aconstant state of transition between liquid and solid, and is in thiscontext an absolute and complete response to its riverside setting.

The nautical theme first introduced by the building’s titaniumcladding appears in numerous other shapes and forms that alludeto Bilbao’s proud shipbuilding tradition and its strong cultural tiesto the Nervión River. At the west end, a colossal mass of curvilin-ear steel (see Figure 8) seems to transform the entire edifice intoa massive freight ship, commemorating the former power and pres-ence of the Bilbao shipbuilding industry, once the center of its eco-nomic activity and its greatest source of pride (Romoli 122). Themetallic ship-like structure does well to complement the industriallandscape along the Nervión, which consists of shipbuilding yards,

Eric Yieh 15

loading docks, cranes, and massivewarehouses. The museum’s pervasivemarine imagery extends to its overallshape, which looks like a whaleperched along the banks of theNervión River; its center complexforms the head, its elevated mid-sec-tion the dorsal fin, and its end towerthe tail fin (Raine 35). In addition,shallow water gardens along the side ofthe building are placed in such a man-ner as to effectively merge it with theNervión, forming a visual link to theriver and thereby completing the mari-time theme that evokes the memory ofBilbao’s industrial past.

Having acknowledged the city’spast and present, the building looks ahead to Bilbao’s future,asserting the city’s emergence as a modern European cultural cen-ter. Inside, one finds that the architecture faithfully presents thetwentieth-century art rather than upstaging it. Works by Kandinsky,Matisse, Picasso, and Chagall are the main draw within the museum,and recognizing this, Gehry puts the art ahead of his own expressivedesires. While he could have easily made the museum’s interior asextravagant as its exterior, he defers his ego to the desires of theBasque government, who requested a museum that would pleasean international art crowd. Indeed, as Bradley states, “the interiorlayout is characterized by an admirable practicality which sets itapart from many recent contemporary art museums” (105). Thebuilding’s curvilinear forms, as extravagant as they seem from theoutside, exist largely as a façade with limited impact on thebuilding’s interior, as 90 percent of the gallery walls are perfectvertical planes (Romoli 123). Consequently, despite concerns thatthe galleries would eclipse their art, they are surprisingly functional,allowing observers to appreciate the museum’s modern master-pieces without architectural intervention. As art critic Giovanninotes, the intimate setting afforded by the galleries’ orthogonalconfigurations allow paintings by Wassily Kandinsky and Joan Miróto be read beautifully (71). At the same time, the museum’s non-linear galleries complement the more contemporary pieces ondisplay, providing a refreshing contrast to the neutrality of the

Figure 8. Ship-like structureat the museum’s west end.Source: van Bruggen,Coosje. Frank O Gehry:Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.New York: GuggenheimFoundation, 1997.


standard “white cube” gallery.“Where traditional art occu-pies space, contemporary artinsists on responding to it orintegrating with it,” observesone writer, and Gehry’s arch-ing galleries fully acknowledgethese needs, providing boldworks of art with equally boldvisual contexts (“Beauty” 95).Take, for example, RichardSerra’s Snake, (see Figure 9) a massive spiraling steel sculpturein the museum’s main exhibition hall. Serra’s work exemplifies the idea of sculpture as architecture, a concept that is magnifiedalongside Gehry’s interpretation of architecture as sculpture.The flowing interior gallery “offers a balanced interplay to thesculpture,” sharpening the senses and allowing for a uncommonviewing experience that highlights the visual power of the work(Lazere). Thus, while projecting a bright future for the city ofBilbao, Gehry’s building plays an active role as a generator ofculture by creating the conditions best suited to displaying art. Itis, as Schwartman eloquently puts it, “nothing less than a reconcili-ation between art and architecture, for it is both an extraordinarybuilding and an extraordinary building for art” (59).

However, one could easily say that the Guggenheim is an alienpresence in a nineteenth-century world, an apparition from anotherculture dropped onto the industrial townscape of Bilbao. And manyof Gehry’s critics did just that. Despite his attempts to integrateBasque culture into the new Guggenheim Museum, they chargedthat his ground-breaking structure clashed with the rest of the city,contributing to a “theme-park” atmosphere where big buildingsdesigned by famous architects competed for attention while isolat-ing themselves from the downtown riverfront (Gould). The culturalattack on the museum was even more condemning. Some saw it asyet another example where an “ambitious American museumexploits [a] rich but innocent provincial European city,” therebydiluting indigenous culture in an effort to attract outside tourists(Goldberger 49). Interestingly, many of these critics’ concerns werenot unfounded. Over the years, traditional Basque culture had seena decline with the urban and industrial development of the region.In most of the larger industrial towns, Basque customs and the

Figure 9. Richard Serra, Snake, 1995.Steel 104 x 13 ft. GuggenheimMuseum Bilbao.

Eric Yieh 17

highly prized Basque language, Euskara, had slowly disappeared(“Basque”). Gehry’s detractors felt the Guggenheim would onlyexacerbate these problems because, as they claimed, his museumwas not Basque but quintessentially American in spirit.

The building, one of several satellites of the prestigiousGuggenheim franchise, represented a new strategy in museumcurating, one aimed at establishing a chain of New York-stylemuseums around the world. Critics were quick to disapprove of theGuggenheim’s transnational ambitions, calling the process“McGuggenisation,” a name whose connotations hinted at thenegative ramifications that such an Americanized homogeneitycould have if suddenly “Guggenheims [were] popping up likeMcDonald’s all over the globe” (McNeill 480). Over the pastcentury, American cultural capital had dominated many of Europe’seconomically weak business institutions. This disturbing situationwas only one facet of a larger international trend that saw thedominance of Hollywood in worldwide film production, the increas-ing influence of English as a global language, and the replacementof indigenous products by American commodities. As a result, manycritics questioned whether such a “foreign” institution couldadequately serve as a marker for Basque identity, and theGuggenheim’s arrival in Bilbao was construed as the latest stage ofAmerican cultural imperialism. Others claimed that by virtue oftheir economic muscle and brand name power, the Americans hadbeen able to impose their international culture on the culturallyconservative city of Bilbao (McNeill 474). Thus, before the museumwas even completed, critics around the globe feared that itspresence would undermine the cultural heritage the Basque peoplehad fought so long and hard to protect.

In response, museum supporters countered that critics hadfailed to recognize the museum’s original purpose as laid out bythe Basque government at its outset. The Guggenheim Bilbao, theyclaimed, was never intended to be a national museum, but aninternational one, one whose primary function was to draw tour-ists from around the globe with a world-renowned collection ofmodern art. The decision to welcome outside art was due largelyto the fact that the Basques did not actively produce fine artuntil the Industrial Revolution, after which it was severely hinderedby Franco’s fascist regime. Consequently, the Basque governmentdid not have in its possession an art collection with internationalappeal and chose to showcase the artistic accomplishments of


foreign artists. This decision, driven largely by economic motiva-tions, also had strong political implications, as it marked one of thefirst instances in which the government openly welcomed outsideculture. So while the large collection of modern and contemporaryart might be interpreted as an invasion of foreign art, or “culturalexclusion” as some critics called it, many viewed it as a reflectionof the Basque government’s desire to show that it no longer desiredto be withdrawn and isolated from the world, but open to newforms of expression (Baniotopoulou 10). The argument for themuseum’s cultural preservation is largely based on the fact that themuseum does not neglect local art. Inside, lesser known works bypromising young Basque talents Juan Luis Moraza, Txomin Badiola,and Prudencio Irazabal are prominently displayed among severalgalleries dedicated exclusively to the works of local artists. Thesepaintings serve to complement more famous modern works ofPop Art, Minimalism, and Abstract Expressionism, just as theGuggenheim itself serves to complement its Bilbao setting. More-over, the Guggenheim Bilbao has renewed local interest in Basqueart, as new centers for young contemporary artists such as“Bilboarte” have been erected in the wake of the museum’s open-ing. For many of the museum’s supporters then, it appeared thatwhile trying to attract outside tourism, Guggenheim developerswere also careful to respond to the needs of the local community.

The museum’s opening in 1991 calmed much of the contro-versy that it had initially confronted, as it was well received bya majority of the local population and critics who declared itan unequivocal triumph for the Basque people. Drawn by themuseum’s unparalleled combination of brilliant art and architec-ture, visitors flocked to Bilbao in mass numbers, and the citysaw a drastic change in fortune. Immediately, figures showed a33 percent increase in the number of incoming travelers to theBasque Country (Plaza). Within three years of its grand opening,the museum had brought in 3,625,000 visitors, created 5,000 newjobs, and generated 600 million dollars’ worth of economic activityfor the city of Bilbao alone (Mediguren). In 2001, it continued toboost tourism and the local economy with 82 percent of the city’svisitors coming exclusively for the museum (Bailey 10). Moreover,because the Basque single-handedly paid 100 million dollars for theconstruction of their landmark building in Bilbao, many saw thedecision to move forward with the museum as a conscious and

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pragmatic one, not one compelled by outside influences(Goldberger 49). In this sense, the Guggenheim can be seen as asymbol of Basque fiscal autonomy, a public investment made with-out recourse to Spanish central government funds (Plaza 267).

At the same time, the museum put the city on the internationalmap, making it clear that Bilbao’s doors were open to the world.Despite failed attempts by ETA guerillas to bomb the museum—to effectively isolate the Basque people from the global commu-nity—the museum helped the Basque region to shed the violentseparatist image brought about by ETA terrorism. As a result, tour-ists continued to pour into Bilbao in mass numbers despite theever-present terrorist threat. Such was the immense draw of Gehry’sglistening building. As Basque president Jose Ardanza stated, “Weare no longer withdrawn, insular; we are open to the world,strengthened by our relationship with a foundation of internationalrenown” (Bradley 105). The museum’s political implicationsextended even further. By thwarting the ETA’s attack on themuseum, the Basque government was able to promote its agendaof peace over independence. The understanding was that peaceshould come first, and only then could Basque sovereignty be asubject for future talks (Gutierrez 20). Furthermore, as McNeillstates, “the establishment of the Bilbao Guggenheim was also partof a maneuver by the ruling party to enhance its relative strengthwithin its immediate political space—Spain” (483). In this respect,Gehry’s museum plays a strategic role as a buffer to the culturalthreat posed by the Spanish state, and is a means of repositioningthe Basque Country as a separate identity, one that can functionindependently of Spanish interference. As a symbol of the Basquepeople, his magnificent building succeeds in transforming theworld’s perception of Bilbao from a deteriorated industrial portinto a modern Mecca of contemporary art.

A striking study in modern design, the Guggenheim MuseumBilbao is a remarkable testament to the power of architecture tonot only reshape an urban landscape, but to effect profoundchange on society on economic, political, and cultural fronts. Moreimportantly, the museum’s success shows that urban renewal andimage creation do not have to take place at the expense of culturalidentity. With his innovative design, Gehry manages to satisfy hisBasque clients’ aspirations for an emblematic building with greatmarket potential and their desire to maintain their city’s rich


cultural fabric. In the process, he goes back to the future, drawinginspiration from Bilbao’s rich past to restore life and promise toa once desperate city. His museum’s success in revitalizing Bilbaois undeniable, its preservation of local culture manifest. More thana simple rose, whale, or ship, Gehry’s magnificent building standsas a twenty-first century monument to modern art and as a sign ofoptimism for a new age, a proud architectural icon for a people thatnever had one.

Works Cited

Attias, Laurie. “The Guggenheim Bilbao.” Art News Sep. 1996: 144.Bailey, Martin. “Gehry + Guggenheim Still a Winner.” Art Newspaper Mar.

2002: 10.Baniotopoulou, Evdoxia. “Art for Whose Sake? Modern Art Museums and

Their Role in Transforming Societies: The Case of the GuggenheimBilbao” Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies. Nov. 2001. 1-15.

Barreneche, Raul A. “Gehry’s Guggenheim.” Architecture Sept. 1996:177-181.

“Basque.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 May 2002. <http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=13815>

“A Beauty Is Born.” The Economist. 25 Oct. 1997: 94-95.Bradley, Kim. “The Deal of the Century.” Art in America July 1997:

48-55.Brandolini, Sebastiano. “The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.” Domus Nov.

1997: 10-19.Giovanni, Joseph. “Gehry’s Reign in Spain.” Architecture Dec. 1997:

64-77.Goldberger, Paul. “The Politics of Building.” The New Yorker 13 Oct. 1997:

48-53.Golub, Adrienne. “Renaissance Plan.” Weekly Planet. 1 May 2002.

<http://www.weeklyplanet.com/2001-05-10/cover.html>Goodman, Al. “Basque Question: Spain’s Pressing Problem.” CNN.com. 1

May 2002. <http://europe.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/basque/stories/overview.html>

Gould, Whitney. “Spanish Lessons for Milwaukee.” Milwaukee JournalSentinel. 1 May 2002. <http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/may01/bilbao06050501a.asp>

Gutierrez, Miren. “Terror in the Pyrenees.” The Nation 25 Mar. 2000:20-23.

Lazere, Arthur. “Guggenheim Museum Bilbao—Frank Gehry.”Culturevulture.net. 1 May 2002. <http://www.culturevulture.net/ArtandArch/Bilbao.htm>

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McNeill, Donald. “McGuggenisation? National Identity and Globalizationin the Basque Country.” Political Geography May 2000: 473-494.

Medigurren, Ibon Areso. “Boomtown Basque.” Art Newspaper Feb. 2001:49.

Myers, William. “Basque Separatism Remains Critical Issue.” CNN.com. 1May 2002. <http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/21/spain.basque/index.html>

Nicolin, Pierluigi. “The Dismemberment of Orpheus.” Lotus International1998: 6-26.

Oppler, Ellen. Picasso’s Guernica. New York: Norton and Company, 1988.Plaza, Beatriz. “Evaluating the Influence of a Large Cultural Artifact in

the Attraction of Tourism.” Urban Affairs Review. 2000: 264-74.Raine, Craig. “Gehry’s Supreme Fiction.” Modern Painters Winter 1998: 32-

35.Romoli, Giorgio. “Gehry in Bilbao: A Different Interpretation.”

L’Architettura Feb. 1998: 121-123.Schwartzmann, Allan. “Art vs. architecture.” Architecture Dec. 1997:

56-59.Stein, Karen D. “Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.” Architectural Record Oct.

1997: 74-87.Sussman, Paul. “ETA: Feared separatist group.” CNN.com. 1 May 2002.

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