The story of the Guggenheim Bilbao begins in 1991, when Thomas Krens, then director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, started looking for a museum site in Europe. When the mayor of Bilbao invited him to his city \u2014 where many factories were closing down, taking with them the prospect of young populations and visiting tourists \u2014 the industrial wasteland seemed unfitting for a museum. Yet, Krens saw it as a promising place to create a strongly identifiable building and one that would bring civic pride to the inhabitants of Bilbao.<\/p>\n
The museum opened in 1997, on a site bordering the water. The strange sculpture made of deconstructed shapes and monumental curves is by Frank O. Gehry<\/a>, who drew a dynamic form imbued in his creative inspirations and fantasies.<\/p>\n \u201cFish and their movements have always been part of my architectural vocabulary,\u201d explains Gehry. \u201cI think that it goes back to my childhood. Every Thursday, my grandmother took me to the Jewish Market, we bought a live carp and brought it home, where we put it in the bathtub. I played with the fish all day until my grandmother killed it to make fish bowls.\u201d<\/p>\n