10 Years on, Bilbao Still Wows

Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao is ten years old this week, freshly buffed and looking better than ever, Bloomberg reports. The birthday is marked by a successful show of American heavyweights like Keith Haring, Julian Schnabel and Richard Serra. Bilbao continues to benefit from the cultural attention garnered by the building, but Guggenheim projects seeking to replicate the "effect" elsewhere have stalled.

Progress is slow on the realization of Guggenheim Mexico, Rio de Janeiro and Tawain. The success of Bilbao was aided by smartly timed supporting investments in the subway system and an airport, something those projects should be careful to replicate. Gehry is also designing a new, bigger Guggenheim for a place that is uniquely suited for it: Abu Dhabi. (More Guggenheim Bilbao stories.)