The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao: Cultural tourism, urban renewal, and political risk

This thesis investigates the long-term feasibility of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. It examines the extent to which the feasibility study, conducted by the city planners, of Bilbao, Spain and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation administration of New York City, addressed the potential political risks of the region. It questions the implications those risks may have on the long-term economic sustainability and tourism potential of the project. A history of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, an concise outline of the Basque culture, and an outline of the history of the city of Bilbao assist in the analysis of the project's success. By contrasting these components with a personal interview of the director of the New York museum, the thesis challenges the notion of tourism in an area ridden with terrorism and addresses the necessity of continued negotiations between local and global cultures inherent in a project of this kind.