Frank Gehry’s spec­tac­u­lar twist­ing tita­ni­um-clad mod­ern art muse­um is per­haps the most cel­e­brat­ed build­ing of the 1990s, even start­ing what would be called the ‘Bil­bao-effect’: The idea in urban plan­ning that a star-qual­i­­ty build­ing can sin­­gle-hand­ed­­ly change the entire image of a city. Although this effect is unproven in its pure form, the Guggen­heim nev­er­the­less changed the world wide per­cep­tion of Bil­bao. The grace­ful, sen­su­ous curves, evoca­tive of the ships that used to be ubiq­ui­tous along the docks of Bil­bao, are cov­ered in tita­ni­um squares, which resem­ble the scales of a fish and shim­mer in the sun­light. In keep­ing with the mar­itime theme, appro­pri­ate for the set­ting, the sky­lights of the largest gallery (for­mer­ly known as the Fish gallery) are designed to look like the fins of fish. Many parts of the build­ing are pure­ly dec­o­ra­tive, and don’t serve any pur­pose. The per­ma­nent col­lec­tion is not par­tic­u­lar­ly impres­sive, but the muse­um always hosts at least one inter­est­ing tem­po­rary exhib­it, fre­quent­ly com­prised of mas­ter­pieces from the oth­er Guggen­heim col­lec­tions.