Guggenheim Bilbao scraps $128 million extension plan following environmental protests
The Guggenheim Bilbao has scrapped plans for a new $128 million museum also in the Basque Country amid protests.
The world-famous museum had hoped to open a second location in the Basque region at a Unesco biosphere reserve located 25 miles away from Bilbao city centre.
The new outpost was planned to be built at the former Dalia cutlery factory in Guernica and the Murueta shipyards, which are both part of the Urdaibai biosphere reserve that is situated on the coastline.
However, they have now decided to shelve plans.
A spokesperson for the museum told The Art Newspaper, “After a two-year reflection period on the feasibility studies about the project, the board made a decision at their meeting [16 December] not to proceed with this initiative.”
The reasoning for their change of heart was due to “territorial, urban planning, and environmental constraints and limitations”.
They also said of their initial vision for the second site, “The expansion project of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Urdaibai was conceived as an institution capable of generating interactions and experiences at multiple levels in profound harmony with the natural processes around it; where the active dialogue between the landscape and artistic creation would find a relevant, unique expression; as a place to explore the common ground between art, research and ecology.”
Notable groups that opposed the Guggenheim’s plans for Urdaibai include Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/BirdLife.
News of the scrapped project has been celebrated by Guggenheim Urdaibai Stop Platform, which said in a statement, “This project would have caused serious ecological damage, something the scientific community has been warning about from the outset.”
Since opening in 1997, the Guggenheim has become the main attraction of Bilbao and has established the Basque city as one of the most desirable city breaks in Europe.
