The words ‘Guggenheim effect’ are enough to get urban planners salivating the world over. While pre-Guggenheim Bilbao was never exactly a backwater, neither was it top of anyone’s cultural holiday agenda. It is now. Not only that, but since Frank Gehry and his outlandish design, the city has also been graced with Norman Foster’s distinctive metro entrances and Santiago Calatrava’s arching, skeletal Zubizuri bridge.
[Bilbao guide]