The competition organized 1997 to face the necessary rearrangement of the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts proposed the creation of a backbone between two scarcely connected wings: The old 1945 building (Urrutia-Cárdenas), and the modern one built in the seventies (Libano-Beascoa). It was suggested to arrange this connection using the loggia which encloses the existing pond.

On the contrary, the project decided to focus on the fact that the privileged location of the Museum is given by the axis of the Count Arteche Boulevard, which comes from Indautxu plaza over plaza Campuzano, crosses the Gran Via, and is farther projected over the river to Deusto University.

Whereas the modern building opens to the hollow in the park, the old body seemed to ignore it, giving its back towards it, and offering its most elaborate and intimate portrait to the surroundings of the pond on the opposite side. It looked advisable to avoid any intervention on the WISELY measured scale of the elements providing this fine frame.