The project was the brainchild of the eccentric and controversial director of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Thomas Krens, who was looking for ways to expand the museum and stabilize its finances. As well Bilbao soon proposed branches in New York’s SoHo district, Berlin, and Los Angeles, although all three were less ambitious than the museum in Spain. The museum kept most of its collection in storage, which was not only extremely costly, as the energy requirements to store the artworks in the right conditions were high due to special regulations, but it was also a professional pain that only 5–10% of the valuable artworks were accessible to the public. The ambitious museum director made history when he signed a 20-year franchise contract with the Bilbao City Council, unprecedented in the cultural sector. The city paid nearly $25 million for the right to use the Name, management assistance, and the collection deposit (Grincheva 2018). The name was a guarantee for implementing a high-quality art program, with the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum hosting world-class exhibitions and building a collection of masterpieces on loan from New York museums and other institutions. In December 2014, the City of Bilbao extended its partnership with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York for 20 years.1