Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is in Bilbao, a city in Spain.

It is a museum full of art. The building itself looks like a giant shiny sculpture.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of art in Bilbao, in northern Spain. It stands beside the Nervión River, on a site that was once a wharf used by the port and by industry.

The Canadian American architect Frank Gehry designed it. The museum says the building has 24,000 square meters of space, and 9,000 of them are for showing art.

The museum describes Frank Gehry's building as a sculpture-like structure integrated into Bilbao's urban pattern, with 24,000 m² of floor space, 9,000 m² of it devoted to exhibitions.

Its plaza and main entrance line up with Calle Iparragirre, one of the main streets running diagonally through the city, extending the center to the museum's door. A broad stairway leads visitors down from the plaza to the Hall, overcoming the height difference between the riverside and the higher city level, so that the building does not rise above the height of its neighbors.

Inside is a big, bright room under a huge skylight.

Curvy walkways, elevators and stairs lead to 20 galleries full of art.

Inside, visitors reach the Atrium, a big, bright space with curved walls, big glass walls and a huge skylight. The museum calls it the real heart of the building.

The museum's three levels are arranged around the Atrium and joined by curved walkways, titanium and glass elevators, and stairs. They lead to 20 galleries: some are rectangular rooms, and others have curvy, irregular shapes.

The Atrium, which the museum calls the real heart of the building, combines curved volumes with large glass curtain walls under a great skylight and also serves as an exhibition space. It is the axis for 20 galleries on three levels, linked by curved walkways, titanium-and-glass elevators and staircases; some galleries are orthogonal with classical proportions, others organic and irregular.

Outside, works by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Eduardo Chillida, Yves Klein, Jeff Koons and Fujiko Nakaya stand around the building, and since 2007 La Salve Bridge has carried Daniel Buren's commissioned work Arcos rojos / Arku Gorriak.

In the photo, the shiny curved walls glow in the sun.

There is a giant spider sculpture, a pool and a river walk with people.

The photo, taken in November 2016 from the riverside, shows the museum's curved titanium shapes and a tall glass wall. In front are a pool of water, a giant sculpture shaped like a spider, a tall sculpture of shiny balls and a little mist. People walk along the river path on the right.

The museum says you can walk all the way around the building and see different shapes from every side.

The riverside photo (17 November 2016) shows the titanium-clad volumes, a glazed curtain wall, a pool at the building's foot, a large spider-shaped sculpture, a tall column of reflective spheres and drifting mist, the riverside walkway with visitors, the Nervión on the right and a glass high-rise behind; the record names none of the artworks.

The museum invites visitors to walk all the way around the building, which presents a different configuration from each viewpoint, and to see the artworks installed outside.