ABSTRACT
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is the apotheosis of the iconic project because it materialises the false continuity of modernity and capitalism in an uninterrupted, Möbius-like loop; its fantasy is of a pure, infinite and unadulterated present moment. Yet the dialectical-materialist inquiry of this chapter reveals the failure of the Basque iconic “revitalisation” project to save a city that had been ravaged by deindustrialisation, by the failures of capitalism. Bilbao’s image as a “post-industrial city” seeks to avoid the pain of modernity, to conceal its malady, but in real terms, the Guggenheim Bilbao is empty, a mere opiate.
