We went for a long weekend to Elciego, about 70 miles south of Bilbao, in northern Spain, which house the great Riojan vineyard known as the Marques de Riscal (though we searched high and low we couldn't find out whether there really ever was a Marques....).
We stayed at the Frank Gehry designed Vineyard Hotel (2006) on the site which was both a real surprise and a delight. I went to the opening of his band stand in the Millennium Park in Chicago in July, 2004 and then flew on to LA to see his Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003). Later, I found his HQ at Venice Beach.
It is such a shame he has done so little in the UK - just Maggie's hospice for children in Dundee (2003) and the temporary Serpentine Gallery (2008).
Of course, yesterday, en route home, we stopped off at the monumental Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao which has the most generous internal spaces for installation art. It was also a small genuflection to Le Corpses previous work with its use of naval architecture.
The Vineyard Hotel was, as the name suggests, a homage to the MdR vineyard. The main building uses three sandstone stems of a vine which have then be wrapped - using Gehry's signature titanium - as leaves around a vine. He uses the colours of gold, silver and purple (as a leaf-motif...) of one of the Marques de Riscal's great Riojan red bottles. The overall effect is staggeringly beautiful.
It is a building to rock your soul.