Tasty Wine, Tasty Culture

For our second field trip, I had the chance to explore the northern Spanish city of Bilbao. Coming from Barcelona, which as a city is a lot more populated with a very metropolitan feel, Bilbao seemed like a tiny little village. Although it had the same Spanish feel, it was a much more relaxing place to visit. Compared to my previous Spring Break expedition, it was also nice to visit a city where I could speak in Spanish, which as a language is becoming much more familiar to me every day that goes by. The highlight of Bilbao was without a doubt our visit to Canadian architect Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Art Museum. I had heard a lot about Gehry’s interesting and sometimes non-rational (depending on who you ask) structures before, but I had never witnessed one personally until the Guggenheim. I was almost speechless at first, but as I explored the galleries and display areas I grew a pretty fond appreciation of his design. While in Bilbao, I also had the chance to walk yet another of Santiago Calatrava’s bridges. Although it was at a much smaller scale of the pedestrian, as a functioning structure it remained just as impressive.


Our trip to Bilbao was in some respects a two-part journey. Our second day there we embarked on an hour-long bus ride to an area of northern Spain infamous for its wine making- La Rioja. The scenery was amazing, probably some of the nicest I’ve seen in all of Europe so far. The intent was to visit three different wineries notable for not only the wine they produce, but also for a building contributed to each by notable architects. On our first stop, we were able to sit and relax in a wine-tasting pavilion designed by Zaha Hadid. Although it was a much smaller scale in comparison to her other structures, it was the first Zaha project I had ever seen in person and as such was just as impressive. Our second stop landed us on winery grounds containing a hotel designed by Frank Gehry, which was almost as impressive as his design for the Guggenheim but a lot harder to admire given the extreme amount of glare it was giving off from the sun. Our third and final stop found us at a winery designed by none other than Spanish architect Santiago
Calatrava. As one of the first actual built structures I had ever seen by Calatrava (sans his numerous bridges scattered throughout Spain), I was very impressed.





Seeing Bilbao and the surround region gave me a pretty different perspective on Spain, both geographically and culturally. The trip was a great success, and fortunately I was able to take a newfound knowledge on wine with me back to good old Barcelona. Como mola.