When Frank O. Gehry won a limited competition to design Bilbao’s new art museum in the early 1990s, the idea was to turn an old brick factory along a bend in the Nervión River into a cultural focal point for a city that had seen its traditional industries, such as shipbuilding and mining, virtually disappear by the late 20th century. Gehry had designed the Fish (1992) sculpture for Barcelona’s Port Olímpic, utilizing computer-aided design (his first use of CAD for a major project) to model its sweeping curves. In Bilbao, he would employ similar methods, resulting in what appear to be random organic forms (reminiscent of billowing sails) with the combination of seemingly incongruous … [Read more...] about Bilbao celebrates 15 years of Guggenheim-inspired transformation
architecture
Iberian architecture builds a modern legacy
Recently, the widely read architectural website ArchDaily released its Buildings of the Year 2011 report and several winners from its categories are based in Iberia, including the MIMA House (MIMA Architects) in Viana do Castelo and Barcelona’s iGuzzini Illuminazione España H.Q. (MiAS Arquitectes). This, alongside Eduardo Souto de Moura’s 2011 Pritzker Prize win (architecture’s most prestigious award) raises the question: why is Portuguese and Spanish contemporary architecture garnering so much attention all of a sudden? Perhaps the attention may not be so sudden after all. By the time Portugal and Spain entered the EU in 1986, both countries had emerged from a period of architecture … [Read more...] about Iberian architecture builds a modern legacy