Archinect - News

The Guggenheim Bilbao announces $129 million Basque country expansion

2022-08-02T15:34:00-04:00

The Guggenheim Bilbao’s long-gestating plans to expand to a Spanish natural reserve may finally come to fruition. Earlier this week, officials with the government of the Biscay province, whose capital is Bilbao, revealed that they were planning to put €40 million toward an expansion in Urdaibai, an estuary to the east of Bilbao that has hundreds of plant species and thousands of human residents.

The new expansion will be connected to Frank Gehry’s original museum complex via a tunnel, according to the local outlet El Correo. The Guggenheim has been promoting the idea on and off since 2008 while it forged ahead with its other either failed or repeatedly-delayed (and not to mention politically-tinged) satellite projects under the leadership of outgoing Director Richard Armstrong.

As ARTnews reported, the Bilbao expansion will be an adaptive reuse design split between two former industrial sites in Guernica and Murueta. The total €127 million ($129 million) construction is expected to add at least 900 jobs and 148,000 annual visitors to the local economy in a hopeful repeat of the original expansion's famous effect. In a press statement, Armstrong said it will potentially be the "first important museum of the 21st century" and would not be "an architectural icon but a landscape one."

Gehry's Guggenheim Abu Dhabi gets a new opening date…again

2021-09-30T17:41:00-04:00

Frank Gehry has met with Emirati leader Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed in the UAE as the planned Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has announced yet another amended opening date for the second time in as many weeks, according to a press release.

The museum will now open in 2025, a year earlier than was previously announced by director Richard Armstrong at a press conference last week in Basel, Switzerland.

“It is truly thrilling to see this project enter into this new phase,” Gehry said in a statement. “I am immensely proud to work closely with our partners, DCT Abu Dhabi and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, to create a home for their ground-breaking cultural program. I hope that this building is embraced by the people of the UAE and that this work will endure as a landmark for the country for many years to come.”

Previously on Archinect: Opening of Gehry-designed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi announced for 2026. Image courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP

“As we move forward with our plans, it is crucial to re...

Opening of Gehry-designed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi announced for 2026

2021-09-21T17:06:00-04:00

The long-awaited Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will open in five years, said the institution’s director Richard Armstrong at a press briefing held today in Basel.

One of Frank Gehry’s most-anticipated projects to date, the $200 million Guggenheim Abu Dhabi satellite museum, has been pushed back numerous times over the years after being originally announced by Armstrong’s predecessor in July of 2006.

Armstrong’s tenure has been permeated by protests over the labor conditions of workers in the UAE. The new museum will complete the cultural segment of Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island, which includes Jean Nouvel's Louvre Abu Dhabi and a planned performing art center from Zaha Hadid.

“We think it should be five years from next week,” he said. “It looks like everything is coming together, so we can say something definitive. It has been a relatively long gestation.”

Construction of Gehry's Guggenheim Abu Dhabi to commence 'soon'

2019-04-30T14:24:00-04:00

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is a project earmarked for the capital’s Saadiyat Island. The museum is being developed near the completed Louvre Abu Dhabi, as part of the emirate’s increased tourism marketing spend by $136 million over three years. The experimental, sculptural Guggenheim building, is the design of famed architect Frank Gehry.

"It's a big building, parts of it are quite complex and it should take a little bit of time to put together as it's also quite large," Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, explains in a recent Euronews interview, assuring that the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi was "on track and on budget."

Image: TDIC and Gehry Partners, LLP

Gulf Labor initiative renews criticism of Abu Dhabi museums over migrant workers' rights

2015-08-03T19:39:00-04:00

Migrant workers building branches of the Guggenheim Museum, the Louvre and the Zayed National Museum on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi continue to face crushing debt, substandard wages and harsh working conditions despite recent efforts to improve treatment, according to a report published this week by Gulf Labor, a coalition of artists and activists. [...] the researchers found that “underpayment is far and away the primary concern” for the workers themselves.

This issue of labor rights in the greater gulf region previously on Archinect:

Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong talks Helsinki, Abu Dhabi, New York

2015-06-16T17:15:00-04:00

We spoke to Richard Armstrong, the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, on the eve of the exhibition Guggenheim Helsinki Now: Six Finalist Designs Unveiled at the Kunsthalle Helsinki [...] So the Guggenheim Helsinki will really happen? Come June we will say which architect seems best for the job; then there has to be a vote in city council again [...]. So there are still a few legislative hurdles ahead, but I would predict yes. It’s irresistible.

Did you submit one of the record-shattering 1,715 entries to the Guggenheim Helsinki competition and think it's worth presenting to the wider Archinect audience? Check out the related Archinect Project Collections list to see other user contributions and learn how to get yours listed, too.

An updated look at the conditions for Abu Dhabi's migrant workers

2015-03-04T14:30:00-05:00

With all the cultural, sports and real-estate projects launched throughout the United Arab Emirates, there have been persistent protests about the working and living conditions [...] ”Serious concerns about workers’ rights have not been resolved”, claims the advocacy group, asking for a commitment for ”more serious protection” from these institutions and Saadiyat Island’s developers. [...] appears to have made a serious effort to address the concern expressed by Western museums and architects.

Guggenheim protesters highlight poor labor practices

2014-04-01T12:45:00-04:00

Saadiyat Island, off the coast of Abu Dhabi, has seen $27 billion in investments pour in as the island hopes to become a new beacon of culture in the region developers behind the island have received international attention for the poor conditions in which migrant laborers work and live. Reports have found that in some cases, the control employers hold over the island's workers, such as withholding their passports to prevent them from returning to their home countries, amounts to forced labor.

Saadiyat Island includes a half-billion-dollar branch of the Louvre Museum designed by Jean Nouvel, a national museum designed by Norman Foster and a variety of luxury resorts, golf clubs, marinas and private villas.

Where does an architect's responsibility begin and where does it end?

Guggenheim Spoof Site Targets Abu Dhabi Controversy

2014-03-28T12:37:00-04:00

A spoof Guggenheim website, globalguggenheim.org, went live this morning with a satirical “Sustainable Design Competition” for the global museum’s embattled Abu Dhabi branch. The website, a slightly modified replica of the official Guggenheim version, features images of Saadiyat Island, where the museum is to be built, overlayed with the hashtag #futureguggenheim, as well as references to Gulf Labor’s ongoing 52 Weeks campaign.