Alex's Summer at Sea

I’m writing this entry just as we’re getting ready to pull away from Bilbao and head out to the Atlantic for an 11-day journey back to Florida. It’s hard to put into words quite yet how it feels, but it’s an incredibly exciting sense, knowing that we’re headed back to the States, but at the same time coming back after seeing eight different countries, cultures, and going through countless experiences. Keep checking back, as between now and the 21st, I’ll be posting some more stories from Spain, a couple of blogs that I wrote but somehow got lost in the quick shuffle between countries, and some Springeresque “Final Thoughts.” Until then, an overview of Bilbao:

Bilbao struck me as a city that is style over substance. The famous Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, serves as a symbol for this dichotomy. The building itself, designed by the architectural wonder Frank Gehry, is without a doubt a site to behold. Nestled along the river that divides old-town from the new, it is an enormous sandstone building topped off with swirling metal panels that reach high into the Spanish sky. On a sunny day – and what else is there, here? – the light bounces off of the silver, creating at once a shimmer and a sheen that says this isn’t just a regular building – it’s a building that Bilbao has centered its restructured economy around.

The inside of the building, however, is a different story. It’s a typical Guggenheim – not afraid to take chances. The modern art contained within the spectacular building struck me as doing a disservice to Gehry’s brilliance. Let me highlight a couple of examples that will show what I mean. One piece of “art” in the museum is a cardboard box (flattened), attached to a blank white wall. On the box, are a couple smaller pieces of cardboard stapled to it. Not surprisingly, the piece of art is entitled “cardboard box.” The medium used is listed as “cardboard box, with cardboard fragments.” Now, believe, me, I’m the first to admit that I don’t appreciate much art, especially not modern art, so perhaps it’s me not understanding the art. On the other hand…it’s a cardboard box.

The second piece of “art” that I want to highlight is not so much a piece of art, but rather a gigantic hallway of the museum filled with larger than life panels arranged in waves and spirals, through which the art aficionados are supposed to walk. We’re reminded it’s not just “art,” it’s a “personal artistic experience.” I walked through it. I wandered in and out of spirals, and the only art I found therein was the grace and style needed to walk in and out of the panels when there are two directions of people walking and only room enough for one and a half at a time. The famed NY Times art critic, Michael Kimmelman, who is notoriously tough, called this piece a “deeply humane work.” While I certainly didn’t find it inhumane, it’s just a glorified corn-field maze, that is supposed to summon forth my inner Picaso. If you’re wondering, Pablo is still lost inside of me.

A second example of style over substance is the city’s recently built Metro system. It is, hands down, the nicest underground I’ve ever been on, and I’ve ridden quite a few. The entrances are sleek sloped glass cones with escalators leading down to sub-Bilbao. The trains are ultra modern, and the stations are clean and futuristic looking. The ride itself, though, is slow, the wait between trains is too long, and the stops aren’t far-reaching enough. It’s beautiful, but not an especially effective means of transportation – the antithesis of the DC metro, which is a bit ugly and grimy, but man does it get the job done. The metro, along with the museum, highlights the gap in Bilbao between essence and essentials.

Part of my negative view of the city comes because we visited at the wrong time – in two senses of the word. The first, is that Bilbao is a rebuilding economy, like Pittsburg devastated from the loss of the steel industry. It has some brand new infrastructure (hello metro), and some cultural highlights (Guggenheim, what), but is lacking the guts that make a city special. I think that despite the above comments, Bilbao will restructure itself to be a strong city again, but we happened to visit at a time when it is not at its strongest. Secondly, we visited in August, when nearly all Spaniards are on “holiday” elsewhere in Spain and Europe. Therefore, the city felt emptier than I’m sure it is at other times during the year. I think that it would be interesting to head back to Bilbao in maybe 10 years, during the spring or fall, and see how that Bilbao compares to the one I just saw.
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The inside of the metro:

A dog, made of flowers, in front of the Guggenheim:

The Guggenheim showing through the streets of Bilbao:

A picture I took of the Spirals, which, by the way, is forbidden; you are reminded constantly not to take pictures inside the humane exhibit. (If you are from Guggenheim security and you are reading this, “oops, sorry, I forgot.”)