The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is celebrating the best summer in its history after welcoming 449,477 visitors between June and August 2022.
This summer was the Bilbao museum‘s most successful since it opened in 1997. The Frank Gehry-designed institution was visited by 195,411 people in August.
The museum enjoyed a daily average of 6,297 guests. Until now, its best August to date was pre-pandemic in 2018 when it welcomed 182,005 visitors.
The same goes for the months of June and July. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao attracted 106,136 guests in June and 147,930 visitors in July.
During the museum’s best summer week, between 8 August and 14 August, it hosted 50,434 visitors. Its top day was 18 August with 8,800 visitors.
Bilbao museum beats pre-Covid attendance
According to a press release, 65 percent of guests came from outside of Spain. 18 percent of these were visiting from France, 7 percent from Germany, 7 percent from the Netherlands, 6 percent from the UK and 5 percent from Italy.
10 percent of the museum’s total summer visitors were from the Basque Country. 5 percent travelled from Catalonia and 5 percent came from Madrid.
Earlier this year, local media reported that the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’s plans to expand to the Urdaibai nature reserve may come to fruition.
Richard Armstrong, director of the Guggenheim Foundation, previously said the museum could potentially become the “first important museum of the 21st century”. He said it “would not be an architectural icon, but a landscape one”.
The Guggenheim is also opening a new museum in Abu Dhabi in 2026. It is on track to complete in 2025. Meanwhile, Armstrong is stepping down in 2023.
Images: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
