Plans for a new Guggenheim museum in the Basque Country's Urdaibai nature reserve have been cancelled, with environmental activists welcoming the news.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao's plans for an outpost in Urdaibai, a Unesco biosphere reserve, were first revealed in 2008.
The project's supporters include the Guggenheim Foundation, the Basque government and local and regional authorities.
However, local campaigners said the project would destroy Urdaibai. The site was declared a biosphere reserve, described as a learning place for sustainable development, by Unesco in 1984.
Via the Guardian, in a statement earlier this week, the Guggenheim Foundation said the project had been scrapped “in light of the territorial, urban planning and environmental constraints and limitations”.
It added: “New alternatives will be explored in order to face the challenge of elaborating a proposal that responds to the museum’s objective of growing in order to remain a leading cultural institution internationally and a driving force in the Basque Country’s cultural, economic and social scene.”
Environmental group Guggenheim Urdaibai Stop said in a statement: "The authorities told us unanimously that they were going to build this museum 'no matter what'.
"They didn’t care about the opinion of society; they didn’t care about the debate generated among citizens."
Project scrapped due to "environmental constraints"
It added, "Now, however, we are here celebrating the decision that these same leaders and institutions have had to make, unable to ignore a reality revealed by science, the law and society."
Greenpeace Spain said: “Social mobilisation works and, together with countless local groups, we have managed to stop the extension of the Guggenheim museum that threatened to destroy this unique natural space.
"Urdaibai is already a monument and it will continue to be one.”
Designed by architect Frank Gehry, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened in 1997.
Images courtesy of the Guggenheim Foundation
