The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a contemporary art museum designed by Canadian architect Frank O. Gehry and located in the city of Bilbao.

It is one of the museums linked by franchise or collaboration with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

It was inaugurated on October 18, 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spain.

Negotiations for the construction of the museum between the public authorities of the autonomous community of the Basque Country and the directors of the Guggenheim Foundation began in February 1991. The agreement was signed at the end of that year, selecting the architect and the location of the building to mid 1992.

Since its inauguration in 1997, the museum has received an average of over one million visitors a year, causing an extraordinary impact on the Basque economy and society, boosting tourism in the region and promoting the revitalization of multiple public and private spaces in the town. , in addition to improving the image of the city.

The most striking feature of the museum is the innovative building in which it is housed, made up of curvilinear and twisted shapes, covered with limestone, glass curtains and titanium plates.

It has a total area of 24,000 square meters, of which 10,540 square meters are reserved for exhibitions, distributed in 19 galleries.

It is located on the banks of the Bilbao estuary, in an area called Abandoibarra, next to the La Salve bridge, which is surrounded by a hollow tower.

Both the building and its permanent collection belong to the Basque authorities. On December 3, 2014, the Board of Trustees of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao approved to renew for another 20 years the collaboration with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York, signed in 1994 and whose validity expired on December 31.