Bold lessons from Bilbao

In 1997, the otherwise nondescript port town of Bilbao in Spain was struggling. While it was a working port, the steel industry that contributed so much to its economy was taking a knock and residents saw a bleak future for themselves.

In October of that year, though, the city was catapulted onto the list of world cultural capitals through a single event: the opening of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, built at a cost of $100 million.

The spending of that amount of money on a single project was met, understandably, with a broad range of reactions. Local artists decried the waste, and complained that they were left out of the planning. Politicians used it as an opportunity to soapbox that there were better ways for the money to be used. Local residents grumbled.

But still the project prevailed. More than that, further commitments were made – the Basque government bankrolled a $50m acquisition fund for the Museum; paid a $20m management and licensing fee to the Guggenheim Foundation for the use of their brand; and committed to subsidise the annual running costs of the Museum which stood at $12m.

The project was massive, the building iconic (designed to look like a ship looking out over the river), and so, when it opened its doors, city planners the world over leaned forward to see what would happen.

What happened was extraordinary. Within three years the construction costs were recouped. Two years before it opened, Bilbao attracted just 25 000 tourists.

In 2009, more than 615 000 visitors came through the city. Of the 7 million people to walk through the Museum’s doors since its opening, 60% are foreigners and 82% say they came to the City just to visit the museum or had extended their stay because of it. It generates $29m a year in local taxes, and helps maintain 4 415 jobs.

It has become known as the ‘Guggenheim Effect’ and is often held up as a model for the contribution of culture to economic growth.

It is not, of course, perfect. The City of Bilbao still has high levels of poverty – about 11.5% of households live in “severe poverty”, about double the region’s average. Much of the Museum’s benefit is felt by the middle class and tourism sectors, and little by those who fall into the unskilled labour wedge on economist’s pie charts, those most affected by the steel industry’s downturn. Sound familiar? Clearly there are some parallels between where we are as a City and where Bilbao was twenty years ago.

Recently a group of citizens got together to grapple with some of the burning issues Grahamstown faces. It was a free and frank engagement between institutions, politicians, local business and energetic, concerned citizens wanting to make a difference.

It’s easy, when involved in a process like that, to get absorbed in the detail and to lose sight of a big picture. We obsess about water reticulation, revenue collection, waste and engineering issues, HR and management. We don’t give ourselves the space to breathe and think big – the immediate problems are just too huge.

But let’s not lose the opportunity to learn from the big-picture successes and failures of the Guggenheim project. Some of the lessons that strike me are: 1. Investing in or establishing an ambitious cultural project can reap rewards for cities with long-term vision backed by political will. 2. It’s not enough just to invest in bricks and mortar – there has to be a plan to sustain the content of cultural institutions. That’s what will give them the competitive edge. 3. Sustainability is not just about keeping the lights on. It’s about cultural institutions being relevant to their surrounding community. There has to exist a model – somewhere – of an institution doing both the big economic job and the vital hyper-local relevance job. If we can’t find a model to replicate, we should be looking to create one. 4. Vibrant, interesting, inclusive, innovative and thoughtfully curated museums play an important role in our society in 2017. Underfunded and demotivated institutions are rapidly becoming irrelevant. 5. Thinking big will reap rewards… eventually! We’re not Bilbao. We’re Grahamstown. And our town’s solutions must reflect our unique challenges. But the inspiration for those solutions needs to be big and bold and global.

•Tony Lankester is the CEO of the National Arts Festival. Leading the Vision is a series by significant Grahamstown

players meaningfully contributing to key areas of growth and transformation

in education, economic development, arts and culture

and local governance.