The Bilbao Effect: Is "Starchitecture" All It's Cracked Up to Be?

Author: Chris Michael (The Guardian, "A history of cities in 50 buildings," day 27)
Year: 2015
Source type: article (journalism)
Raw file: raw/articles/michael-2015-bilbao-effect-starchitecture.md

Summary

A Guardian feature that questions whether the "Bilbao effect" actually spreads culture or merely money. It opens with the Łódź city council official who wanted to copy the exact Guggenheim Bilbao building, and weighs Bilbao's top-down, star-architect regeneration against grassroots cultural movements (ZAWP in Zorrozaurre, Karraskan Bilbao) that get little support, and against Montreal's "anti-Bilbao effect" (Culture Montreal's open network). The question: "Is the Bilbao effect to spread culture, or just to spread money?"

Key Claims

• The "Bilbao effect" as copyable cliché: Kacprzak of Łódź wanted Gehry to build "the same" building ("But we would use it for a concert hall"); "many of my clients say the same thing: give us the Guggenheim ... you can't just copy it."
• Bilbao's top-down success: airport (Calatrava), metro (Foster), Guggenheim (Gehry) on budget at $89m; visitor spending recouped cost within three years; estimated €168m economic impact, ~4,415 jobs; the Bilbao Art District. Yet "Presiding over it all, like a monolith of gentrification, is the Guggenheim," and the city "seems strangely quiet."
• Grassroots culture margins: ZAWP (Zorrozaurre Art Working Progress) — a decentralised collective of artists/musicians — gets "no support for grassroots culture"; "we are nomads," says Gómez-Álvarez. Karraskan Bilbao's de Quadra: "we don't think about the Guggenheim."
• The "anti-Bilbao effect" (Montreal): Simon Brault of Culture Montreal an "open, non-hierarchical cultural network" open to "everyday Montrealers"; "It is always better to tap into local culture rather than buy it from outside. You can't do culture in a city without involving citizens."
• The question: "Is the Bilbao effect to spread culture, or just to spread money?" The star-architect model (Hadid's Zorrozaurre) is the test of the "middle ground"; Fernandez Sabau: "There was an incredible confluence of amazing, talented people ... You can't just buy that."

Connections

Concepts: Iconic Architecture · Star Architecture · Gentrification · Everyday Life
Authors: Chris Michael · Frank Gehry
Debates: Spectacle vs. Function
Related source notes: Creating the Bilbao Effect (oral history) · Reviewing the "Bilbao effect" (Lorente) · The Architecture of the City (Bismarck)

Direct Quotes

"Is the Bilbao effect to spread culture, or just to spread money?"

"[T]here's no support for grassroots culture. We waited 20 years before we got any funding from the government at all." (Gómez-Álvarez of ZAWP)

"You can't do culture in a city without involving citizens." (Simon Brault, Montreal)

"The Guggenheim put our city on the map, no question. But you also can't get anything support here unless it's top-down." (Gómez-Álvarez)

Open Questions

• Does the "anti-Bilbao effect" (bottom-up, non-hierarchical culture) offer a genuine alternative to star-architect regeneration, or does it remain marginal against the powerful "middle ground" of speculative culture-led development?
• Cost discrepancy: this piece reports the museum "on budget at $89m," while Creating the Bilbao Effect (oral history) reports a $150m building (within a $320m package). Sources disagree; noted, not resolved.