Iruña to the Basques—the historical capital of the old Kingdom of Navarre in northern Spain, has hitherto been known mainly for its annual Festival of San Fermín, with its running-of-the-bulls immortalised by Ernest Hemingway in “The Sun Also Rises”, and as a stop on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. Now the small city is seeking a different form of cultural validation, by taking a path well-trodden in Spain: the opening of a snazzy new museum.
The Museo Universidad de Navarra, tucked into a hillside outside the city center, is most obviously inspired by nearby Bilbao, where the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim has been breathing life into post-industrial torpor since 1997.
