Environmental association Zain Dezagun Urdaibai and several Busturialdea neighbours have sent a letter to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York. In the letter they request that he renounce the museum project they want to build in Murueta, as well as the construction of the so-called Green Road that would unite the former Dalia factory in Gernika-Lumo. In this second location, it is argued that there could be bodies of the dead in the 1937 Gernika bombing. They added that the construction of this project would not agree with the idea of making Gernika an international benchmark against wars and for peace and memory.
The association wanted to inform the foundation of New York that in some media “they define the project in order to give a better publicity: the dissemination of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in Urdaibai”.
The letter sent on Monday includes the signing of 22 people from different areas living or working in the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve. These neighbors want to remind the 22 patrons of the Guggenheim Bilbao that “they will not let anyone outside their daily lives “rob the decision” about their scope of life, present and future.
The contents of the letter were announced on 12 February, at the end of the march organized by the Urdaibai platform. Many protesting neighbours received information about the inadequacies and illegalities of installing a museum in Gernika and Murueta. Among other things, they stressed that the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve would mean sacrificing the Biosphere Reserve for the benefit of the tourism interests of the current authorities, believing that approximately 140,000 visitors would meet annually in both locations. At the end of the march, the actions to be taken against these projects were also announced, “the actual contents of these projects are not officially known and have more shadows than lights”, the organizers stressed.
The letter to the Guggenheim Foundation in New York is best:
Two years ago Urdaibai Guggenheim Stop! Since the creation of the popular platform, Urdaibai is not for sale! We hear the chorus everywhere. On 19 October we met thousands of people in Gernika to reject this project and, in my opinion, there are three main reasons for opposing... [+]
On 22 January, Iñigo Urkullu and Elixabete Etxanobe attended the media jointly, and Urkullu announced that the institutions they represent will have a two-year period to analyze the viability of the Guggenheim Urdaibai project. It says that changes are being made in the... [+]