GMB calls forth both industrial might and an other worldly newness. Its largest shapes, reminiscent of power plants and ship hulls and prows, allude to Bilbao's industrial and stupbuilding mastery. Its more freely sculpted forms, such as the "metallic flower, lend the building an ethereal, space age character. The building's intergalatic aura is enhanced by its silvery surface (made up of33,000 rectangular titanium "shin ges), which glows and shimmers inthe sunlight and is reflected in the iver. (An advanced aerospace comput- er program named Catia made the fabrication of the iregulary shaped building elements possible.)