The history of the City of Culture started in Bilbao, where the Guggenheim Museum has averaged more than one million visitors per year since it opened in 1997, a great boon to the Basque economy and society. The Bilbao Guggenheim has been the drive behind the transformation of a city that was weighted down by its steel manufacturing past; it has attracted fresh businesses and tourism for the whole region.
Seeing the advantages, most politicians are now pursuing the same formula in their own regions. In 1999, an international competition for the design of a City of Culture in Santiago was proposed to 11 architects—Ricardo Bofill, Peter Eisenman, José Manuel Gallego, Annette Gigon & Mike Guyer, Steven Holl, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Juan Navarro Baldeweg, Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault and César Portela. Their proposals with respective models are kept on display in an underground space at the new complex. Each project clearly reflects the creative mind behind it; each is entirely different. Possibly the most evocative is Eisenman's, which seems to fit in best with its surroundings thanks to an organic, sculptural appearance that is at once a link to the environment and an elegant referral to the city. The wooden model in itself heralded a fine project.
The figures are just as staggering: the site extends over 680,000 square metres, of which 220,000 square metres are being used for urban development; buildings occupy an area of 60,000 square metres, with a total constructed surface area of 140,000 square metres. The construction work should have finished in 2005, but the library (15,202 m2) and archives (11,225 m2) were opened on January 11, 2011, while the museum (20,734 m2), a music and performance centre (34,430 m2), an international art centre (13,685 m2) and general amenities (6,291 m2) have yet to be completed. It is hoped that the entire complex will be finished by 2017, with an overall cost that is said (off the record) to exceed 500 million euros—five times the original estimate.
The main question may well be, does this make sense after all the political and financial considerations have been made, given the current difficult situation and the constantly changing programme? If we only analyze the architectural project itself, the answer is more complicated because we are looking at a well-approached but sadly unresolved problem.
But architecture is born more out of reason than faith.
The initial idea of removing the top of the mountain and re-creating it with buildings involved the removal of one million cubic metres of soil and has produced some enormous and intriguing humps on Mount Gaiás. Despite efforts to disguise them beneath a mantle of stone, they do not blend in with the landscape. There is an issue of scale that not even time will resolve. The presumption that the concept behind the superimposition of all the interwoven elements will solve every problem is a naïve dream that can only end in tears. Instead of converging, the composition patterns tend either to break away from each other or clash.
This leaves major parts of the buildings unresolved and another act of faith based on false ceilings and wall cladding is required in an attempt to remedy the impossible. Hundreds of built cubic metres remain sterile, concealed in hidden areas or assigned to unlikely functions.
The presumption that the concept behind the superimposition of all the interwoven elements will solve every problem is a naïve dream that can only end in tears. Instead of converging, the composition patterns tend either to break away from each other or clash.
On the day of its inauguration, Peter Eisenman explained to television cameras how "in 50 years' time, this complex will be a Mecca for people who want to know what architecture was like at the start of the 21st century." A strange definition for a building designed in 1999, with serious shortcomings in terms of sustainability and vague content.
