Screenshot from the Chicago Tribune’s website.
When SOM informed Gehry of its findings, “he was just elated because instead of fighting the curve, we used it,” SOM Associate Partner Emeritus John Zils, told Gil in an interview conducted for an insightful double issue of MAS Context devoted to Bilbao.
The journal explores the rise, fall and rise of the Basque city, once a steel-making and ship-building powerhouse that was forced to reinvent itself when its industrial-era economic model collapsed. The journal also explodes the myth that the Guggenheim was the silver bullet that revived the city. In reality, the transformation required decades of urban planning and infrastructure upgrades, epitomized by a sleek, Foster + Partners subway system that opened in 1995, two years before the museum.
Thanks to Blair Kamin for mentioning of our issue in his column. You can find the complete text on the Chicago Tribune’s website.