There are, in essence, two major parts: the titanium surface and the structure’s forms and proportions. Bilbao is a moving, living, dynamic museum. Called, "the greatest building of our time," by Philip Johnson, its surfaces undulate in every dimension (and probably in some unseen dimension known only to Gehry himself). Its organic freedom recalls garden ground cover—as if titanium could grow like pachysandra. The choice of surface material speaks volumes in this design. Titanium, when alloyed with other metals, becomes corrosion resistant, boasts the highest strength-to-weight ratio of all metals and a 100-year life span. It is a sophisticated strategic material that for decades was stockpiled by missile makers, aircraft manufacturers and governments in the event of war. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, architects and builders would not have been able to acquire enough to build a building, and Gehry’s use of it just a few years after the end of the Cold War is a nod to the end of that conflict.

On the other hand, the success of Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao has created a new term in the museum business—the "Bilbao Effect," or worse, the "Disneyfication" of the museum. "Some warn that new buildings give only short-term benefits," wrote Andrew McClellan in The Art Museum From Boullee to Bilbao (University of California Press, 2008), "that without a strong collection the crowds will visit once and not return and that the new architecture diminishes art and cheapens the museum experience."

For many years the Baghdad-born British architect Zaha Hadid, winner of the 2004 Pritzker Prize, labored in obscurity and resorted to sending unsolicited design drawings to government officials in other countries. Today, her spectacular Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati and her upcoming Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University demonstrate the breadth and depth of her talent. According to Director Curator Raphaela Platow, the building has already attained "landmark status." It not only adds new life to its own urban center, it also transcends its time and place as a world-class museum.

The Rosenthal Center seemingly punches at onlookers with concrete fists. Like Wright’s Guggenheim, it is non-contextual: While the adjacent buildings have uniform vertical corners edges, the Rosenthal Center has broken horizontal and vertical lines. While the neighboring buildings have uniform window and floor patterns, Hadid’s Rosenthal Center lacks such uniformity. Windowless angled volumes project out toward the street, while its lowest level consists of a glass wall. The concrete volumes above the glass wall seem to defy gravity. It is a new visual experience within its streetscape.

Hadid’s rendering of the tri-level 41,000-square-foot Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum illustrates a futuristic point of view in architecture. The aluminum and glass exterior is at once at odds with and in harmony with nature, as represented by the adjacent sculpture garden. The low lines do not intrude too much into the natural surroundings, while the museum’s metallic angularity says, "humans have built this."

A most imaginative resurrection of an abandoned building was created with the help of Italian-born architect Renzo Piano, the 2008 AIA Gold Medal winner. His Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli in the north tower of the Lingotto Factory Conversion (also known as Turin’s "jewel box in the sky") displays 25 works of art by Canaletto, Manet, Renoir, Modigliani, Matisse and Picasso, which are owned by Gianni Agnelli, head of the Fiat conglomerate.

The museum, with its industrial appearance, seems to float above a rectangular office box atop the renovated 1917 Fiat factory and has its own rooftop automobile test track. In the tradition of Wright’s Guggenheim, Piano’s roof museum defies gravity, and it lets the natural context filter in from above, below and through each side in a manner similar to that of the Museo Oscar Niemeyer. New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman reminds us that "Piano’s buildings display art well."