Evening approaches Bilbao’s old port, bringing with it the joggers who pinball along the promenades, the tourists mulling a cruise on the dark green waters of the estuary, and the woman in the artisan ice-cream booth who keeps vigil behind tubs of dulce de leche, passionfruit and bubblegum-flavoured “blue smurf”.
Close by, its titanium scales glowing yellow in the last of the sun, lies the building that helped make such now-mundane scenes possible. Before the Guggenheim Museum opened in the Basque city 25 years ago this month – and before the massive urban regeneration project it helped to drive – Bilbao looked, felt and smelled very different.
