Guernica, the Basques and the Basque city of Bilbao, known for its Guggenheim Museum

Bilbao Guggenheim Museum
Originally uploaded by Wojtek Gurak

This limestone- and titanium tile–clad Getty museum looks like a huge, silvery fish, and connects the city of Bilbao with its river. Architect Frank Gehry meshed many visions. To him, the building's multiple forms jostle like a loose crate of bottles. They also evoke sails heading out to sea.

Gehry keeps returning to his fish motif, reminding visitors that, as a boy, he was inspired by carp...even taking them into the bathtub with him. The building's skin — shiny, metallic, fish-like scales — is made of thin titanium, carefully created to give just the desired color and reflective quality.

A great way to really enjoy the exterior is to take a circular stroll up and down each side of the river along the handsome promenade and over the two modern pedestrian bridges.

Guarding the main entrance is artist Jeff Koons' 42-foot-tall West Highland Terrier. Its 60,000 plants and flowers, which blossom in concert, grow through steel mesh. A joyful structure, it brings viewers back to their childhood...perhaps evoking humankind's relationship to God...or maybe it's just another notorious Koons hoax. One thing is clear: It answers to "Puppy."

The atrium is clearly the heart of the building, pumping visitors from various rooms on three levels out and back, always returning to this central area before moving on to the next. Only the floor is straight. The architect invites you to caress the sensual curves of the walls. Notice the sheets of glass that make up the elevator shaft: They overlap like scales on a fish. The various glass and limestone panels are each unique, designed and shaped by a computer — as will likely be standard in constructing the great buildings of the future.

From the atrium, step out onto the riverside terrace. The shallow pool lets the river lick at the foundations of the building. Notice the museum's commitment to public spaces: On the right, a grand and public staircase leads under a big green bridge to a tower designed to wrap the bridge into the museum's grand scheme.

This museum is part of the Guggenheim "family" of museums; the collection rotates among the sister Guggenheim galleries in New York, Venice, and Berlin.