THE GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, BILBAO
Image Number 244
When the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened to the public in 1997, it was immediately hailed as one of the world’s most spectacular buildings and described by some as “the greatest building of our time”. The New Yorker, characterized it as “a fantastic dream ship of undulating form in a cloak of titanium , ” its brilliantly reflective panels also reminiscent of fish scales.
The museum unfolds its interconnecting shapes of stone, glass and titanium on a 32,500-square-meter site along the Nervión River in the old industrial heart of Bilbao.
Atticus Webb was so taken by the swirling organic forms and the play of light on the titanium cladding that he spent six hours photographing the exterior. The museum closed for the day before he could make it inside.
TECHNICAL NOTES
Captured by Atticus Webb mid afternoon on a Zeiss Contax 645 medium format camera with Zeiss 55 mm medium wide angle lens at f11 with an exposure of 1/45th of a second. The image was registered on a transparency using Fuji Velvia 50 ASA film. It was then scanned in high resolution by Bond Imaging. The image has not been cropped and has not been manipulated.