Chillida-Leku — Attraction in Hernani

Chillida Leku Museum, a must-see, a 15-minute drive from downtown San Sebastian (Barrio Jauregui, 66, in Hernani), a pleasant outdoor stroll among 40 of his sculptures, spread over 11 hectares of land. Known for his colossal public installations, Chillida, worked primarily in iron, wood, and steel reflecting his interest in space and materiality. “The sculptures are very large and my work is a rebellion against gravity,” the artist explained. “A dialectic exists between the empty and full space.” Born on January 10, 1924 in San Sebastián, Chillida studied architecture at the University of Madrid but turned to art and moved to Paris in 1948. Upon returning to Spain in the 1950s, his focus turned toward light, landscape, and spatial concerns. A winner of the Grand International Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1958, the artist’s own museum, this Museo, the Chillida-Leku, opened in 2000 and Chillida died on August 19, 2002 in his hometown of San Sebastián, Spain at the age of 78. Today, the sculptor’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Tate Gallery in London, and The Museum Modern Art in New York,...

We visited at the end of May 2023 after a gap of 15 years and enjoyed our time in the revamped park and buildings even more than the first time. We thoroughly recommend visiting at this time of year as the magnificent trees are multiple shades of vibrant green and Piet Oudolf's garden is bursting into life, all this a perfect foil to Chillida's masterful sculptures. Our main impression is how engaged with the spirit and ethos of the estate all the staff that we met were . From the young lady at the reception booth with whom we discussed the ups and downs of Oudolf's planting schemes, to the attendant in the Zabalaga house who talked thoughtfully about the work of Phyllida Barlow and the the chat we had in the shop regarding placement of the sculptures. In the café too, despite it being a fairly busy Sunday lunchtime staff were pleasant and well informed. This level of engagement is not easy to attain and maintain but obviously the management are doing something right to have achieved it. Bravo! Still the place is a little bit of heaven, so who would not...

The Chillida-Leku Museum is a large space of gardens and forests and a remodeled farmhouse ( Zabalaga ), where the sculptor Eduardo Chillida Juantegui distributed a large sample of his work. It is located in the vicinity of Hernani , province of Guipúzcoa . Opened on September 16, 2000, after 10 years of activity, on December 31, 2010 it closed its doors due to the economic crisis.The museum is spread over a 13- hectare plot.On the outside there are 40 sculptures of very different sizes. The largest are Looking for the light of 27 tons and 9 meters high and Lotura XXXII of 60 tons, and others like Estela V do not measure more than one meter. The materials for the exterior sculptures are steel and stone, predominantly pink granite .The sculptures in the gardens can be touched, so the visitor feels the strength of the materials.On November 30, 2017, it was announced that Chillida-Leku would reopen in 2018, with the Swiss gallery Hauser & Wirth being the exclusive representative of Eduardo Chillida's work.However, the reopening was postponed for...