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Stains mar titanium exterior of Spain's Guggenheim

Guggenheim, Bilbao
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain  

BILBAO, Spain (Reuters) -- The titanium exterior of Spain's world famous Guggenheim art museum has been tarnished by dark stains just three years after its high-profile inauguration, a museum official said Wednesday.

"There's a gray dust which has adhered itself to the exterior of the building," said Nerea Abasolo, a spokeswoman for the museum. "Titanium doesn't rust, but like any other metal it gets dirty."

The Guggenheim, designed by architect by Frank O. Gehry, pushed Bilbao into the international limelight and encouraged the regeneration of the Basque city on Spain's northern coast.

  RESOURCES
 
 

Gehry, recently selected to design New York City's new Guggenheim museum, called the response to the stains "a tempest in a teapot."

"If they'd cleaned the building properly when construction was completed the stains would not be there. It's normal: you finish a building and you clean it," he told The New York Times.

Gehry told the Times the problem arose when the building contractor spilled a silicon-based fireproofing sealant onto some of the titanium panels. He also suggested placing a new layer of panels over the soiled ones as a simpler solution.

But the spokeswoman for the museum said officials were facing up to the task of cleaning the facade.

"The areas are gigantic, curved and very difficult to reach. We have asked a Basque company to study a suitable cleaning system," she said.

Inaugurated in October 1997, the $160 billion building generated a wide range of reactions from architects. While some experts have called it the greatest building this century, others have likened it to a giant cauliflower or a capsized boat.

Titanium, which is paper-thin, light, flexible and shiny, will also be used in Gehry's new Guggenheim design to be built in lower Manhattan.

A spokeswoman for the tourist office in Bilbao said there was no sign that the stains had weighed on the museum's popularity.

"People keep on flooding to the place and its fascination hasn't worn off because of a bit of dirt," she said.

Copyright 2001 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



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