Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao: on the synergy of museology and contemporary architecture

The Guggenheim Foundation has created two famous museum buildings, which have changed both museology and contemporary architecture. Guggenheim Museum in New York, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, was opened in 1959, Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry, was opened in 1997. The first of them has broken the traditional archetype of a museum building as based on the rectangular logic of a picture gallery, and elevated architecture of a museum to a role equal to its collection. The second one raised the importance of the museum buildings as they took a central position in contemporary cities, equal to cathedrals in medieval cities. The construction of Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has long-lasting results called "the Bilbao effect": iconic buildings focused the attention of the media, they caused the phenomenon of "star architects", they became a travel destination for mass tourism and therefore acted as a catalyst of social and economic revival of a postindustrial city.