Inside the building, skylight | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

A day at the Museum

Have an unforgettable experience at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, visiting the exhibitions and taking a look at the building’s stuning architectural features.

Explore the educational areas in each exhibition, where you will find a variety of tools including texts and reading sections, interactive software, videos, audio files, images, illustrations, and graphic resources. They will make your experience much more rewarding!

* Scan the QR codes in the galleries to get the audio guides on your mobile phone for a most enjoyable tour.

Zero
Sala ZERO | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Zero

Lobby

We suggest you start your tour of the Museum at ZERO, an immersive experience with a powerful visual language and an amazing design.

Located in the lobby, ZERO welcomes all visitors with a sensory approach to the history of the Museum and its environs, to the Frank Gehry–designed building, and to the Museum Collection.

Atrium
Interior del edificio, Atrio | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Atrium

1st floor, Atrium

The Atrium is the beating heart of the building, connecting the interior to the exterior. The walkways pumping visitors into or out of it offer new standpoints to observe the artwork on view.

The Matter of Time
La Materia del Tiempo | Richard Serra | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

The Matter of Time

1st floor, gallery 104

You can experience and activate time and space by wondering about The Matter of Time, an installation by Richard Serra (1994-2005).

Originally designed for gallery 104, this series of seven monumental sculptures posed a huge challenge in terms of both manufacturing and installation. The sculptures were impossibly heavy and yet quite fragile, being made of towering weathering steel sheets. It took state-of-the-art technology to make them.

At the far end of the gallery, there is an educational area where you can find scale models of the works on display and a video showing how they were installed, among other resources. Make sure not to miss it!

Richard Serra
The Matter of Time , 1994–2005
Weathering Steel
Dimensions variable
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Site-specific Works (Museum interior)
instalacion para bilbao holzer red

Site-specific Works (Museum interior)

1st floor, Atrium

Standing in dialogue with the interior and the exterior of the building designed by Frank Gehry, site-specific works by contemporary artists make a significant part of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection.

In gallery 101, by the Atrium, take a look at Jenny Holzer’s Installation for Bilbao (1997).

Jenny Holzer
Installation for Bilbao , 1997
Electronic LED sign
Site-specific dimensions
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Bar Guggenheim Bilbao
terraza bar 2

Bar Guggenheim Bilbao

Plaza

If you need a break or a snack, go to the Bar Guggenheim Bilbao, next to the Bistró, in the Museum plaza.

Museum Exterior
El gran árbol y el ojo | Anish Kapoor | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Museum Exterior

1st floor, terrace

From the riverfront terrace you can see how the Museum is seamlessly integrated into the surrounding cityscape in terms of materials (glass, titanium, limestone) and how it connects with the surrounding buildings and structures.

The pond pays tribute to the Nervión estuary and its fundamental role in the development of the city of Bilbao. It also makes the perfect setting for artwork by Anish Kapoor and Yves Klein.

Going out from the Atrium, walk into the terrace and discover the works by Eduardo Chillida and also by Louise Bourgeois. You can also take a look at the pieces by Fujiko Nakaya, Daniel Buren, and Yves Klein, also installed outside, which are operated to become active at regular intervals.

Anish Kapoor
Tall Tree & The Eye , 2009
Stainless steel and carbon steel
1297 x 442 x 440 cm
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Works from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection
Sol-LeWitt

Works from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection

3rd floor

The third floor houses Works from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection, a journey through some of the leading art movements in the second half of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, including works by renowned artists like Cristina Iglesias, Sol LeWitt, or Mark Rothko belonging to the Museum Collection.

The galleries on this floor had their skylights reopened for this exhibition, thus going back to their original designs.

 

Restaurants
Interior del restaurante Nerua | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Restaurants

Restaurants

The Museum affords two spaces with different culinary experiences: Nerua Guggenheim Bilbao, an haute cuisine restaurant, and the Bistró Guggenheim Bilbao, a restaurant wrapped in a more informal atmosphere.

Store-Bookstore
tienda guggenheim

Store-Bookstore

1st floor

The Museum Store/Bookstore offers a wide range of items, including design objects, exhibition catalogues, books, and all kinds of gifts. Discounts available for Museum Members. You can also buy from home visiting our online Store.

Yoshitomo Nara
Proyecto nuevo 1 scaled

Yoshitomo Nara

The exhibition focusing on Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959) gathers a selection of his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ceramics, to which we should add My Drawing Room, an installation recreating the artist’s studio.

During his training in Germany, in the 1990s, Nara developed a new style, turning to cartoonish representations of children and animals. Far from being kawaii (Japanese for “cute”), his characters look naughty – at times, even threatening.

Unruly and rebellious, Nara’s works evoke the lyrics and the tunes of the folk and rock songs from the 1950s and 1960s, which accompanied historical events like the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. As a matter of fact, some of his characters carry anti-war or anti-nuclear messages.

Nara’s paintings are the result of several layers of paint in subtly varied pigments, which the artist applies meticulously throughout the painting process.

Yoshitomo Nara
Midnight Tears, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
240.5 × 220 cm
Collection of the Artist
© Yoshitomo Nara, courtesy Yoshitomo Nara Foundation