Works that never gather
The Laocoön, the Venus de Milo and the Parthenon frieze in one hall — impossible in a museum of originals.
Aditu21 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Didier Descouens — CC BY-SA 4.0 · José Ligero Loarte — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ermell — CC BY-SA 4.0
A museum of plaster casts of famous classical sculpture, in a former church in Bilbao la Vieja south of the river. The idea needs explaining because it is strange today: in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries plaster casts were the main instrument of art education. Art students in a city like Bilbao could not travel to Athens or Rome, so exact copies were made of the originals and distributed to schools and museums. This collection is one of them. What you see are therefore copies rather than originals: the Laocoön, the Venus de Milo, sections of the Parthenon frieze, pieces after Michelangelo. The value is not authenticity but seeing these works gathered in one place at their true size, which happens in no museum of originals. The former church gives the collection the height it needs for the larger sculptures. The district around it, Bilbao la Vieja, is the oldest and most mixed part of the city.
The Laocoön, the Venus de Milo and the Parthenon frieze in one hall — impossible in a museum of originals.
The height suits the larger sculptures, and the building is part of the experience.
Bilbao la Vieja is the city's oldest and most mixed district, quite unlike the Guggenheim's surroundings.
Former Corpus Christi church, Bilbao la Vieja
Santiago CathedralSantiago Cathedral is the heart of the Seven Streets — first Bilbao: fourteenth-5 minutes walk4.4
Church of San AntónA church on the bank of the Nervión at the edge of the old town, and among the o5 minutes walk4.5
Plaza Miguel de UnamunoA square in the old town named after the philosopher and writer Miguel de Unamun8 minutes walk4.3
Church of San Nicolás de BariA Baroque church at the northern entrance to Bilbao's old town, directly facing 8 minutes walk4.4
Vista Alegre Bullring and MuseumA bullring in Bilbao originating in the nineteenth century, seating around fourt9 minutes walk4.0Seeing the works at true size and together. The originals are scattered between Athens, Rome, Paris and London, and nowhere in the world shows them side by side. The casts are exact and were made in the nineteenth century from moulds taken directly off the originals, so they are a historical document in themselves about how art was taught.
It sits in Bilbao la Vieja, so it pairs with a walk of the old quarter and the covered Ribera market on the riverbank. The Guggenheim lies the other way to the north, so the two do not combine easily on foot.