I WENT TO BILBAO just to see the Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum. I’m glad I did. Gehry may be our greatest living architect, and the Guggenheim is the best of the 6 or 7 of the buildings designed by him that I’ve seen.

The museum is a wonderful example of a Modernist Civic Building. It is sited well, and everything that is best about it contrasts with the old city around it. That’s not necessary, and it would be bad for an ordinary building in the middle of an ordinary block, but Gehry made it all work in Bilbao.

One thing that struck me was that the people visiting the museum loved it. That’s worth a lot.