Sunday's New York Times had an interesting piece on the impact of Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, a city formerly associated with heavy industry and economic stagnation. For those of you unfamiliar with Gehry's work, it includes the Experience Music Project in Seattle. One of the points of the article was that while the museum has drawn in huge numbers of visitors, and help contribute to a clean-up of the city, it remains isolated in the sense that tourists come, see the museum, then head out, without exploring the rest the city has to offer. The author writes:
On paper at least, Bilbao seems to have it all: world-class museum, fine Basque cuisine, a rollicking night life and lots of shopping. But like the new bike paths that were rarely used during my visit, the city lacks the critical mass of attractions to take it from a provincial post-industrial town, to a global cosmopolitan city. And in the meantime, it is losing the shabby edge that gave the city its earlier appeal.
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