What to see at the Guggenheim Bilbao: tips for visiting the museum as a family and not missing anything

If you are planning to visit the most famous museum in Bilbao, but you are still not sure what to see at the Guggenheim, don’t miss this article. We will give you tips so you can plan your family visit and don’t miss anything.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is an essential stop for any visitor who comes to Botxo. Both the building, its surroundings and its gallery of works are well worth spending a day walking, admiring and enjoying the museum and its surroundings.

If you come as a family, the little ones will also enjoy the experience, because the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has multiple attractions for all ages, which we will detail below.

What can you see at the Guggenheim?

We propose a family tour with the essentials that, yes or yes, you cannot miss at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

Exterior of the Museum

Puppy

Currently, this giant West Highland Terrier welcomes us in the Museum Plaza. It is a large dog (1240 x 1240 x 820 cm) and completely covered in flowering plants that dazzles with its beauty and charisma. The txikis especially enjoy this work, which, without a doubt, leaves everyone speechless who comes to the Museum and sees this unique work for the first time.

This floral sculpture is made by artist Jeff Koons, known for using a visual language that tests the boundaries between popular and elitist culture. Other notable works by this author include porcelain figurines of Michael Jackson or basketballs floating in glass fish tanks. Puppy uses a sweeter iconography that attracts and arouses optimism, while standing guard at the doors of the Museum.

Mom

If we go around the museum and approach the façade that overlooks the Bilbao estuary, we will find Mama (Maman), a spider almost 9 meters high sculpted in bronze, marble and stainless steel, that wraps us between its paws with a mixture of love, fragility and strength that makes it so special.

Boys and girls enjoy walking around and touching their limbs, not without some fear, because Mama is a work that transmits many sensations to those who see it, from fear to vulnerability.

This is one of Louise Bourgeois’s most ambitious sculptures, with which she pays a heartfelt tribute to her mother, who was a weaver, like the spider. It thus represents the strength and fragility of motherhood, an ambiguity that is perfectly conveyed in this gigantic sculpture with thin and light legs that contrasts with its bag full of eggs attached to its abdomen.

The building

Interior of the Museum

Before planning their visit, many people wonder if it is worth entering the Guggenheim. We strongly think yes. Even if you go with girls and boys, the Guggenheim Museum offers an enriching experience for the whole family.

Also remember that children enter the museum for free, so your visit will not be more expensive if you go with the little ones. If you are interested in knowing more About the discounts offered by both the Guggenheim and other museums in Bilbao, don’t miss this article.

Next, we propose a family tour inside the Museum in which everyone, including the txikis, will enjoy the experience. These are our essentials to visit inside the museum.

Atrium, 1st floor

The interior of the museum is divided into three floors that are organized around a spectacular central atrium, the heart of the building, which integrates the interior and exterior. The different floors of the building are connected by curvilinear walkways, titanium and glass elevators, and stair towers that allow you to gain new perspectives to contemplate the works of art.

The great diversity of rooms and spaces invites you to explore and get lost behind its surprising shapes. A visual adventure that awakens the curiosity and fantasy of the most txikis.

ZERO, immersive experience

Located in the lobby, the Zero room offers an immersive projection where a selection of historical images are displayed that show the connection between the Museum and the aesthetic identity of the Basque Country.

The projection is carried out on a curved screen, in a room covered by mirrors, where the visitor is enveloped in a kaleidoscopic environment and a 300º vision that multiplies 14 times the real space of the gallery. Thanks to this configuration, people become the center of a sensory experience that will bring them closer to the history of the Museum and its surroundings.

The matter of time

Tulips

Tulips (Tulips) are a bouquet of flowers conceived as colored balloons of gigantic proportions (more than 2 meters high and 5 meters wide). Koons, also the author of another of the museum’s best-known sculptures, Puppy, surprises again with a large work that evokes popular objects associated with birthday parties. Optimistic and colorful, it is made of shiny stainless steel, a material that transforms an ordinary inflatable object into something hard, shiny and symbolic.

Store-Bookstore

Other useful services for families

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has all the services to make the visit more comfortable for families, even those who come with young children.

There are toilets on all floors of the Museum and in those located on the first floor and the basement, both men’s and women’s, there are baby changing tables.

In addition, the Museum has a cloakroom service, where visitors have the possibility of requesting child seats and baby carriers, to make the visit more comfortable.