The Bilbao Effect - the idea that one building can transform the fortunes ofan entire region - was today described as “bullshit” by the architect whopioneered it.

Frank Gehry built the spectacular fish-scaled Guggenheim museum in Bilbao forless than $100 million 11 years ago.

It paid for itself within a year and spearheaded an economic, social andcultural revival of the Basque region, which is now one of the most populardestinations in Spain after years blighted by terrorist violence.

Ever since, ambitious city planners from Gateshead to Guanzhou have fallenover themselves to bag an iconic new building by a superstar architect inthe hope that it will provide a similar upturn.

But this morning, speaking in front of the temporary summer pavilion he hasdesigned for the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, Gehry, 79, said that theso-called “Bilbao Effect” had been misunderstood.

“It’s a bunch of bullshit,” he said. “You do a building, you solve theproblems, people are happy and that’s nice.”

However, a really successful building, like the Guggenheim, cannot simply bechurned out to order. “It is kind of a miracle, you don’t quite know how ithappens”.

“In the case of Bilbao, they asked for Sydney Opera House when we started butthey had a comprehensive plan for the community. Foster did the subwaysystem, Jim Stirling was doing a train station that never happened,Calatrava did the airport and everybody did a vineyard.

“So there was sort of an intent to change the community and it worked.”

Hyping the power of one building to revive an area is also a distraction fromthe real business of putting up good buildings, Gehry said. “I don’t thinkyou start out to make a marquee development. They talk about “spectaclearchitecture” and I think people jump on these kind of things but from mypoint of view I don’t start out to do that.

“We have budgets, we have clients and time constraints. It is wonderful that every once in a while we can do something that people like.

“I do think architecture is a profession that deserves to have itsmasterpieces and occasionally somebody manages to eke one out. Not everybodycan do it and, God knows, I didn’t know I could.”

Gehry is arguably the most sought after of a small coterie of jet-setting“starchitects” which also includes, among others Lords Foster and Rogers,Zaha Hadid and Herzog & De Meuron, the Swiss renovators of Tate Modern.

His stainless steel coated Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeleswas recently adopted as the city’s new symbol by its Chamber of Commerce,replacing the hillside Hollywood sign. Current work includes projects in LasVegas, Manhattan, California, Pananama and Spain and he has achieved thatmodern cultural apotheosis: an appearance in The Simpsons.

However the Serpentine Pavilion is his first building in England {he has builta Maggie’s Centre for cancer patient care in Dundee}.

It is the eighth such temporary pavilion to be built on the gallery’s lawn - aunique initiative that has brought some of the finest internationalarchitects to work in the country for the first time.

The timber glass and steel Pavilion was inspired by butterfly wings, beachhuts and Leonardo Da Vinci’s designs for catapults. To the untrained eye itlooks like a collapsing tower of Jenga bricks.

Opening on Saturday July 19 it will function as a cafe during the day and hostlive events, music, performance and debates at night.

Jack Pringle, former President of the Royal Institute of British Architects,said that Gehry’s Guggenheim had played a crucial role in rebranding Bilbaobut agreed that it would not have had the same effect without other lessheralded improvements: “Bilbao was a spectacular example of how toregenerate a city. The lesson to learn i
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