Landmarks have the power to redefine cities and pave the way for a brighter future. Throughout the 80s, the Basque city of Bilbao was paralyzed with poverty, unemployment, terrorism, and following population decline. In the decade from 1981 to 1991, 60 thousand out of the 430 thousand inhabitants moved out.
The city's bleak outlook changed when officials made a bold step in 1991 to focus on creating a brand new museum in cooperation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. It was opened in 1997, with construction costs of 89 million dollars (about €168 million today, if adjusted for inflation).
The investment paid off multifold. In its first three years, nearly 4 million tourists visited the Guggenheim Museum, generating about €500 million in economic activity. International visitors exceeded local ones for the first time in 2003, with 43% of visitors coming from abroad. The miraculous turnaround became known as the "Bilbao effect."
In 2016, the museum's earnings were seven times higher than its annual subsidies. From 1997 to 2021, it generated $6.5 billion in revenue, channeling $911 million in tax revenue back to the state and increasing the gross domestic product (GDP) by $5.9 billion.
Between 1998 and 2009 alone, it's estimated to have helped create 45,000 regional jobs. It played its part in stopping the population decline and the number of inhabitants rising again in the current decade.
The Guggenheim Museum was only a part of the transformation. Officials also focused on redeveloping the city's riverbanks, which had been heavily industrialized, by cleaning the Nervión River, creating new public spaces, and modernizing transportation with a new metro system.
Bilbao is one of many cities that experienced a similar story. The same can be said for Sydney and its opera house. In England's county of Cornwall, the Eden Project not only brought inspiration for sustainability landmarks but also helped dramatically the region facing economic difficulties after the decline of its mining and clay industries, leading to high unemployment