In December 2017, the Guggenheim Foundation approved a strategic plan for the years 2018-2020 in order to find a location for a future expansion of the museum outside of Bilbao, considering Urdaibai, Guernica and other areas of Vizcaya.[29][30][31].
At the end of December 2020, it was reported that of the total of 25 projects in the Territory of Vizcaya that were eligible to benefit from the distribution of Next Generation European funds, the Guggenheim Gernika, a green extension of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, was included, with 127 million euros, 81 from the EU:[32][33][34].
On June 7, 2021, it was announced that the Guggenheim aspired to grow in Urdaibai in two locations linked by a greenway: the old Dalia cutlery factory in Gernika and the Murueta Shipyard would host the expansion if the project obtained funding from Next Generation European funds.[35][36][37][38].
On May 8, 2022, it was notified that the Provincial Council had already begun the administrative procedures to build the expansion of the Guggenheim in two separate locations (Gernika and Murueta) linked by a five-kilometer ecological path through the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve. To this end, it activated the first procedure to change the urban planning regulations and make room for the future cultural center in the reserve.[39][40][41].
On July 26 of the same year, it was reported that the Provincial Council had allocated 40 million euros as a first investment and a protocol had been signed with the central government, which would provide European funds to the future museum.[42][43] On September 28, it announced that it had hired a prestigious international team for the architectural project, which would establish its architectural and environmental bases by the beginning of 2023. The Guggenheim Urdaibai would open only a few months a year with a maximum number of visitors.[44][45][46][47] On October 8, it was specified that the central government would join the operation to execute the Guggenheim in Urdaibai activated by the Provincial Council. The preliminary draft of the General State Budgets (PGE) for 2023 contemplated an item of 14.67 million allocated to "single sustainable development actions" in the biosphere reserve.[48].
On October 18, 2022, in full celebration of the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Basque Government recognized that the project for the Guggenheim in Urdaibai was "complex" and presented "difficulties". On November 4, it was learned that the Basque Government was leaving the Urdaibai Guggenheim out of the Culture budget, considering that the project "is not sufficiently developed" to include it in the 2023 Accounts.[53] On the 10th of the same month, it was published that the Provincial Council "shielded" 40 million to execute the Urdaibai Guggenheim "whenever", reserving the allocation even knowing that it would not be used in 2023 and allocating another 10 million to study the potentially contaminated soils where the art gallery will be located.[54] Two days later it was known that the central government would contribute 40 million euros to the Guggenheim of Urdaibai by accepting an amendment from the PNV to the General State Budgets to add another 25 million to the 15 already planned, equaling the amount reserved by the Provincial Council.[55] On November 22 It was learned that the central government revised the Costa law in Urdaibai to accommodate the Guggenheim.[56].
On December 12, 2022, the Board of Trustees of the Guggenheim Museum reaffirmed its willingness to promote the opening of a headquarters in Urdaibai as a "strategic" project for the future,[57] and a day later it was learned that the Manhattan-based architecture studio Cooper Robertson had been hired by the Guggenheim Foundation in New York to lay the foundations for the new museum, whose team of experts would complete its work during the first quarter of 2023.[58].
At the beginning of 2023, Richard Armstrong, director of the Guggenheim Foundation in New York, expressed his "total confidence" in Urdaibai's project, while Vidarte clarified in a joint presentation that the project still required "full confirmation" by the board.[59].
On May 19, 2023, the Provincial Council announced in the middle of the electoral campaign the start of work on the Guggenheim in Urdaibai, with the demolition works of the old Dalia factory in Gernika, one of the two future headquarters of the complex, after the summer.[60][61].
On June 18, 2023, it was announced that the New York architecture studio Cooper Roberston estimated the Guggenheim Urdaibai at 130 million and that the detailed content of the report was made known to the members of the Board of Trustees of the Guggenheim Bilbao Foundation at their meeting on June 14.[62] The first sketch of Urdaibai's Guggenheim projected a large auditorium and two restaurants, the entrance would have in Gernika and would occupy 60,000 square meters. The Provincial Council received the first sketch of the new museum and reported that it would call a competition of ideas for its final design.[63][64][65].
On July 4, 2023, the Council of Ministers approved a subsidy of 40 million that definitively launched the Urdaibai Guggenheim project.[66][67] The Basque Government confirmed its support for the project.[68][69].
On August 1, 2023, it was announced that a report by Costas paved the way to build the Guggenheim in Urdaibai. The central government would thus approve the change requested by the Provincial Council to give legal accommodation to the cultural center in the marsh.[70] However, in November 2023 it was learned that the Basque Government was postponing its adhesion to the project until after the regional elections so as not to generate territorial tensions.[71].
On January 22, 2024, it was reported that the Basque Government and the Provincial Council were giving themselves two years to decide whether the Guggenheim in Urdaibai was "viable".[72][73] The following day, the PNV clarified that the new Guggenheim would be carried out despite the doubts, denying that the project was delayed for two years for electoral reasons and ratifying its "firm commitment" to build it in Urdaibai.[74][75][76][77][78] Subsequently, the Lehendakari responded to the PNV and insisted that he was "in favor" of a period of reflection on Urdaibai's Guggenheim, opting to take two years to analyze the viability of the project but recognizing that his own Government was in favor of building the art gallery.[79] He defended that the expansion of the Museum Guggenheim in Urdaibai could be an element of socioeconomic reactivation of Busturialdea and that "could fit" among the measures proposed within the revitalization plan for the region. Furthermore, he made it clear that he "has not confirmed, denied or questioned anything" in relation to this project promoted by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia.[80].
On June 15, 2024, it was announced that the Provincial Council planned to undertake "in a few weeks", foreseeably before August, the first demolitions on the Gernika plot that would in the future occupy one of the two headquarters that the Guggenheim in Urdaibai will have.[81][82][83].
More than a year later, on November 30, 2025, it was reported that the institutions were considering not going ahead with the project due to the avalanche of technical demands and the social uproar.[84].
Finally, on December 16, 2025, the Board of Trustees decided to paralyze and park the Guggenheim in Urdaibai, announcing that in the coming years they would look for "other places" to carry out the expansion.[85][86][87][88][89].