Interview with Aitor Ortiz

The Guggenheim Bilbao Museum is often described as sparking the ‘Bilbao Effect’ – a city transformed by architecture and art. What does this transformation mean to you personally, growing up in Bilbao?

The experience documenting the construction of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum between 1995 and 1998 had a deep impact on me. It connected my gaze with architecture and marked my way of seeing and creating photography from that moment on. For the city, the construction represented a turning point – a milestone few foresaw and one that required courage to carry out at precisely the right moment. Frank Gehry’s design quickly became an international icon of modern architecture, and it helped spark a shift in Bilbao’s mindset after decades of economic and social decline following the industrial crisis of the 1980s. The project opened the city to culture and to the world. Yet it is crucial not to forget that much of the success of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum comes from the city’s rich social and industrial roots, which enabled it to meet the technical challenges of construction and embrace the Guggenheim Foundation’s artistic ambitions in remarkably little time.

Can architecture and design play a role in reshaping a city's cultural narrative and how its residents perceive their environment?

Absolutely. Quality architecture and design deeply influence and improve our quality of life, while also playing a key role in shaping a place’s cultural identity. It’s essential to remain sensitive to a site’s history – both its tangible and intangible heritage – and to build thoughtfully on what already exists. Paradoxically, at the very moment the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum was being built – perhaps one of the finest buildings of the twentieth century – just six miles downstream, Altos Hornos de Vizcaya, one of the most iconic iron and steel companies of the same century, was being dismantled. This, in a way, reflects the lack of sensitivity in the years that followed the international success of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum. The city continued to renew itself with large-scale projects, but without fully considering the reuse or reinterpretation of its industrial, architectural heritage, a true symbol of modernity.

As someone who grew up in Bilbao and whose work has been showcased internationally, how does your local heritage inspire the way you approach photography on the global stage?

During the 1990s and 2000s, I worked on commissions documenting Bilbao’s urban transformation, while quietly witnessing the loss of the city’s “emotional landscape”. On the one hand, I had this strong urge to explore and learn; on the other, I witnessed the systematic erasure of cultural and aesthetic references. This tension between learning and loss has profoundly influenced the way I see and create. It led me to focus on how images are made and how space is perceived, exploring the interplay of materiality, volume, opacity and transparency, scale, modularity, perspective, sequence, rhythm, and memory. As educator and philosopher Paulo Freire said, “The head thinks where the feet step.” By reflecting deeply on the local, photography can resonate universally.

The titanium façade of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum is known for its dynamic interplay with light, creating a sense of movement and emotion. How did you translate this ever-changing character, the fleeting play of light and color on titanium, into a lasting image?

These curved forms – each one different – grew, evolved, and changed throughout the construction process. The architectural complex is made of several interconnected buildings connected by a vast central atrium. For more than two years, I kept visiting the site, and each visit was different: Elements shifted, the light changed with the time of day, and the surfaces reacted to their ever-changing surroundings. It was chaotic from a work-planning point of view, yet creatively thrilling, because no scene was ever the same twice. As the titanium gradually enveloped the building, it began to come alive, changing color, blending with the environment, and generating reflections and intense gleams. At dusk, the museum reflected the light of everything around it. I remember that there were several attempts to illuminate the building directly at night, which ultimately did not succeed. I was relieved, because while direct lighting might have made the building stand out more, it would have cancelled out the titanium’s unique quality – the beautiful, distorted reflections of ambient light that the museum returns to the city.

What is the balance between innovative design and timeless aesthetics in architecture and photography?

The key is to ensure that design does not become an exercise in empty expressiveness, but instead carries meaning and context. It should be grounded in values cultivated and refined over centuries within each discipline – values that have evolved yet endure because they work: proportion, scale, the thoughtful use of materials, and a deep understanding of architectural and visual culture. In both architecture and photography, technology has advanced remarkably, but it must be applied with rigor and historical awareness, avoiding passing trends or fleeting fashions. When an image achieves its purpose, it is because the creator has resolved it with precision. The result is a work in which nothing is missing and nothing is superfluous.

Beyond your photographic work, what does 'vision' mean to you personally, and how do you translate this into your creative endeavors?

Essentially, my work is about seeing what others might not see. It is selecting fragments of the world, filtering them through cognitive abilities and cultural identity, and highlighting their value in a new context. Photography requires awareness of one’s own perspective. The camera may be neutral, but the eye behind it is not. Before taking a photograph, we must be conscious of how and why we are making it.