Deconstruction

Bert made this oil painting after a visit to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (Spain). You look up into the central hall (the atrium) of the fantastic museum, which Bert has already visited several times. Not only the exterior is very striking, but Bert really liked the incidence of light and the interplay of lines in the central hall.

The building is an example of so-called deconstructivist architecture. Open to the public since 1997, it was designed by North American architect Frank Gehry. Frank Gehry is a representative of deconstructivism. This is a modern architectural style in which the buildings seem to be composed of randomly placed planes and twisted lines. Together they give the impression that the structure could collapse at any moment. Hence the term deconstructivism.

The original concept of 'deconstruction' was used in the 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Derrida laid the foundations for the postmodern philosophical movement of deconstructivism, in which nothing has a fixed meaning. His ideas from the 1960s were later applied in the 1980s in the visual arts and architecture. Visitors to the museum enter the atrium. It is the heart of the museum and at the same time one of the most remarkable spaces in the building. It has a metal-finished flower-shaped roof window. As can be seen at the top of the painting, this lets in the light to illuminate the warm, inviting space. From the atrium, visitors can access a terrace supported by a single pillar. The exhibition spaces can be found on three floors around the central atrium. They are connected by a system of undulating walkways suspended from the ceiling (also seen in the painting), by glass elevators and by several "stair turrets". All in all a special experience!