There will be no Guggenheim Museum in Urdaibai. Classified by UNESCO since 1984, the Urdaibai biosphere reserve (23,000 hectares, 40 km from Bilbao) was to host an annex of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, relaunched in 2020-2021 after a first project in 2008. Costing 130 million euros, the project included two sites in Guernica and Murueta. Contested locally, it was suspended in 2022.
But after three years of standoff, the outcome took place at the end of 2025. In December, the governance of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (its board of directors, the Basque government, the province of Biscay and the Guggenheim Foundation) officially announced that the Urdaibai project was abandoned. Legal obstacles (regulatory uncertainties, risks of appeal) and the constraints of the protected site make the project unfeasible in the short term, forcing elected officials to “pull the handbrake”. According to the general deputy of Biscay, Elixabete Etxanobe, main promoter of the museum, it is a decision “difficult but responsible”.
This announcement comes even before the publication of the final results of the Urdaibai citizen consultation expected in mid-January 2026 and conducted by the Agirre Lehendakaria Center. In view of the preliminary data (80% unfavorable opinions, 660 residents questioned), many observers see this as a maneuver to dissociate the authorities’ decision from popular pressure. Moreover, during her press conference, Elixabete Etxanobe minimized the role of citizen protest, insisting above all on “legal and administrative obstacles” discovered late. A reading considered somewhat biased by opponents, who recall that the public authorities were ready to twist the laws to impose the project “at all costs”.
The Spanish press speaks of a collective and historic victory obtained thanks to social, ecological and cultural pressure. It is compared to a historical precedent in Euskadi: in the 1980s, the Basque people successfully rose up against a nuclear power plant project in Lemoiz. From now on, “Guggenheim Urdaibai Stop” in turn becomes a symbol of the eco-citizen struggle in the region. A popular victory celebration has also been announced in Guernica for February 7, 2026.
The Guggenheim Foundation, which supervises the branches of the New York museum, will console itself in some time with the long-awaited and several times postponed opening of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi in 2026 (no date announced).
