This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Barcelona Olympics and the Seville Expo of 1992, two events that symbolized the debut into global society of the young Spanish democracy, established in 1978 after the death of dictator Francisco Franco.
Through these events, contemporary architecture became the medium that most vividly expressed this reemergence, linking significant design with development. The Olympics and Expo established a pattern that was repeated many times afterward, most notably with Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, which opened in 1997. But with the economic crisis of recent years, the role of public architecture as a catalyst for growth has lost credibility, underscoring weaknesses present in the model from the start.
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