The Guggenheim in the United States, and how a foundation became a network
One Guggenheim museum stands in the United States, on Fifth Avenue in New York, open since 21 October 1959. Here is the foundation behind it, from 1937 to the Abu Dhabi opening on 11 December 2026.
There is one Guggenheim museum in the United States as of 3 November 2026: the white spiral at 1071 Fifth Avenue in New York, open to the public since 21 October 1959. Every other American Guggenheim is history, from a gallery of abstract paintings in 1939 to an outpost in Las Vegas that did not last. This page is about that history, because the building makes more sense once you know who paid for it, who argued over it and why it took so long.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was created in 1937. It now runs museums in New York, Venice and Bilbao, and a fourth is due to open in Abu Dhabi on 11 December 2026. We are an independent site, not affiliated with the museum or the foundation, and we list tours and tickets sold by third-party providers. For hours, prices and how to walk the ramp, go to our Guggenheim Museum New York page.
Searches for the Guggenheim in the United States often turn up a mix of old and new: a SoHo branch, a Berlin partnership, a Las Vegas venture, and a museum in Abu Dhabi that has not opened yet. We sort them below by what is open, what is closed and what is still a plan, and we say which of our dates come from the foundation itself and which only from Wikipedia. The practical question, which Guggenheim is worth a trip, gets a straight answer near the end.
A foundation before there was a museum
The name on the door belongs to a man who never saw the building. Solomon R. Guggenheim died in 1949, ten years before the Fifth Avenue museum opened, and the foundation he gave his name to had spent its first two decades somewhere else entirely.
It was set up in 1937. Two years later it opened its first museum in Manhattan, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under Hilla Rebay, who was both the foundation's curator and the museum's director. Wikipedia puts the address at 24 East 54th Street. Non-objective painting means abstract work with no recognizable subject, and that was the whole program: the collection the museum's own history page lists includes Bauer, Mason, Nebel, Scarlett and Kandinsky, and it says that for many visitors this was the first time they met Kandinsky's work at all.
A gallery that only showed pictures of nothing in particular, in 1939, was a stranger bet than the spiral that came later.
Rebay is the person to remember if you only remember one name besides Guggenheim. The records we found say little about her beyond those two jobs, so we will not pad the picture. What matters for the story is what happened next: the foundation commissioned a permanent building, and the architect it chose changed what a museum could look like.
Electric Pedicab NYC Tour With Flexible Stops, Times Square to Fifth Avenue
The driver is the guide and the route is open: riders add or skip stops between Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building.
Guided Pedicab Tour of Celebrity Homes and Film Locations Around Central Park
Guides point out who lived where around the park, from the Dakota to the Essex House, and which scenes were shot at the Boathouse, Bow Bridge and the Plaza.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour With Walking Stops, 1 to 3 Hours
A private pedicab ride through Central Park with 5-minute walking stops at Strawberry Fields, Bethesda Fountain and Bow Bridge, in 1, 2 or 3 hour versions.
Self-Guided New York City Tour via App: Central Park to Brooklyn Bridge
An app supplies navigation and audio for this self-paced New York route, and the tour can be downloaded to work offline. Stops include Central Park and DUMBO.
Spanish-Language New York Contrasts Tour: Manhattan, Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn
Spanish-guided 8:00 AM departure from Midtown to the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, with Yankee Stadium, street murals and Williamsburg. Ends near Ground Zero.
Upper East Side Architecture Walking Tour of Gilded Age Mansions and the Guggenheim
Gilded Age town houses and Wright's Guggenheim on a two-hour architecture walk from the Frick Collection, with a guide and individual headsets for each guest.
Bustronome NYC Glass-Roof Double-Decker Bus with Multi-Course Lunch
A multi-course lunch with drinks served on a glass-roof bus, driving past Times Square, Madison Avenue, Columbus Circle and Central Park in Manhattan.
Manhattan Tour in Spanish: Central Park to Wall Street and Battery Park
Spanish-guided Manhattan tour that ends at the Wall Street Bull around 1:00 PM, next to Battery Park. Covers Strawberry Fields, Fifth Avenue and the Flatiron.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour: Carousel, Bethesda Terrace, Deluxe and VIP Routes
A private pedicab ride that starts at the Carousel and Wollman Rink, with Deluxe and VIP routes adding Rockefeller Center, Times Square and Midtown landmarks.
Guggenheim Museum New York Entry Ticket: Permanent Collection and Exhibitions
Entry ticket covering the Guggenheim's permanent collection and its temporary exhibitions, in the Frank Lloyd Wright building on Fifth Avenue, New York.
Private Stretch Limousine Tour of Manhattan and Brooklyn with Guide, up to 6
A stretch limousine reserved for your group, with a driver and a separate guide, door-to-door pickup and a customizable route. Up to six passengers per vehicle.
Film and Fiction Walking Tour of Carnegie Hill, Met Steps to the Guggenheim
Two hours of movie locations and celebrity homes along Museum Mile, from the Met steps at 82nd Street to the Guggenheim at 88th Street. Up to 15 travelers.
Manhattan Walking Tour from Wall Street with Guggenheim Museum Entry, 5 Hours
Three hours on foot from Wall Street through Chinatown and Little Italy, then two hours inside the Guggenheim on your own, with the entrance ticket included.
When Harry Met Seinfeld: Private 2-Hour Film Locations Tour with Actor Guide
A local actor guides this private two-hour route past filming locations on the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, the part of Manhattan north of Times Square.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour with Home Alone 2 and Gossip Girl Film Stops
A private pedicab ride past Central Park spots from Home Alone 2, Friends, Spider-Man and Gossip Girl, with photo stops and the park's history from the guide.
4-Hour Van or Mini-Bus Sightseeing Tour of Manhattan with Live Commentary
Van or mini-bus tour from Midtown, with stops at Strawberry Fields, Little Italy, Chinatown and Liberty Park. Live commentary in German, English or Italian.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour with Flexible Pickup, Sheep Meadow and Literary Walk
A private pedicab tour picked up at 59th Street and 6th Avenue or a requested point, then Sheep Meadow, Literary Walk, Bethesda Terrace and Tavern on the Green.
Ratings collected by Viator, Tripadvisor and Tiqets
The foundation in dates
Only dates we could confirm on the foundation's own pages or on the venues' sites; where a date comes from Wikipedia alone, we say so.
The origins
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1937
The foundation is created
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is established in New York.
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1939
Museum of Non-Objective Painting
The first museum opens in Manhattan with Hilla Rebay as director.
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1943
Wright gets the commission
Frank Lloyd Wright is asked to design a permanent building.
The growth
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1949
Solomon Guggenheim dies
The building is still a drawing.
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21 October 1959
Fifth Avenue opens
Wright's museum opens to the public, six months after his death.
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1980
Venice joins the foundation
Peggy Guggenheim's collection opens as a foundation museum.
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October 1997
Bilbao opens
Frank Gehry's titanium museum. Wikipedia gives the day as 18 October.
Today
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11 December 2026
Abu Dhabi is scheduled to open
Announced by the emirate's culture department; not open as of 3 November 2026.
Sixteen years from commission to opening
Frank Lloyd Wright received the commission in 1943. His idea, an inverted ziggurat, a spiral that widens as it climbs, did not become a building until 1959. The museum's page on the building lists the reasons for the delay: changes to the design, the purchase of neighboring properties, postwar construction costs, and Solomon Guggenheim's death in 1949. Construction began in 1956. The museum opened on 21 October 1959, six months after Wright himself had died.
The long wait explains something about the place.
This was never a room added to a collection: the collection was assembled with a building in mind, and the building was argued over for a decade and a half.
You can feel that in how little the interior resembles a normal gallery. The visit itself, the ramp and the skylight and what hangs where, belongs to the New York page. Here it is enough to say that New York is the foundation's only Wright, and the other venues are different bets entirely.
Getting your bearings
Where the story physically happens
The address is 1071 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of 88th Street. Since there is only one American Guggenheim, a trip to the Guggenheim in the United States is in practice a trip to this one address.
If you are building a day around it, our New York page covers the neighboring museums along the avenue and what a ticket costs. This page does not repeat that.
How the network grew, venue by venue
The foundation's own history page describes today's group as New York, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Bilbao and the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Each came from a different kind of decision, which is why no two feel alike.
| Venue | Opening | Building | Our page |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 21 October 1959 | Frank Lloyd Wright, commissioned 1943 | Guggenheim Museum New York |
| Venice | Foundation museum from 1980; Peggy opened her home to visitors from 1951 | Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, Dorsoduro 701 | Peggy Guggenheim Collection Venice |
| Bilbao | October 1997 (18 October per Wikipedia) | Frank Gehry | Guggenheim Museum Bilbao |
| Abu Dhabi | 11 December 2026, scheduled | Frank Gehry design, according to Wikipedia | Not covered yet |
Venice began as a private house. Peggy Guggenheim bought Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in July 1949 and lived there for three decades; the donation of her collection to the foundation is dated 1976 by Wikipedia, and the museum's own site says only that it happened in her lifetime. Our Venice page and the Italy page tell her story properly.
Bilbao began as a proposal from outside. Wikipedia says the Basque government proposed the museum to the foundation in 1991, on a former port site, and construction ran from October 1993 to October 1997, according to the museum itself. The Bilbao page has the building.
Abu Dhabi is the youngest and, so far, a promise. The emirate's culture and tourism department says it opens on Friday 11 December 2026 and calls it the largest Guggenheim in the world. We have not found published opening hours, a ticket price from the museum itself or a list of works for the opening, so we give none.
Venues that closed
The foundation's history page names none of these, which is a choice worth noticing. Wikipedia and other secondary sources record at least three. A Guggenheim SoHo by Arata Isozaki opened in June 1992 in lower Manhattan; we could not confirm when it closed. The Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, run with Deutsche Bank on Unter den Linden, opened in November 1997 and closed in February 2013, when the contract ran out; its single room measured 50 by 8 by 6 meters. In 2001 a Guggenheim Las Vegas opened and shut in 2003, after one exhibition, according to the same sources.
None of this matters for planning a trip. It matters if you read older travel articles, because some still describe a Guggenheim in the wrong city. Treat any mention of Berlin, SoHo or Las Vegas in a guide as a sign the guide is out of date.
Which Guggenheim should you visit?
Our view: pick by building, not by the name on the ticket. A few honest rules of thumb follow from the table above.
If you want the museum that made the foundation famous, and the spiral that people draw from memory, New York is the answer, and it is the only one in the United States. If you prefer a house with a collector's taste in it and a sculpture garden, Venice is closer to that. If it is the building you are after, a ship of titanium on a river, go to Bilbao. Abu Dhabi has to wait until after 11 December and until its hours and prices are published.
Travelers who can only afford one of them often ask which is the best. We would rather answer a different question: which of them fits the trip you are already taking? A week in Italy has a Guggenheim in it. A week in the Basque Country has one too. Three days in Manhattan do not need a second reason.
Tours and tickets listed under the United States
As of 3 November 2026, all 17 listings under this page are in New York, and none covers another American city. They range from a museum entry ticket to Central Park pedicab rides and private city tours, and most of them do not include admission to the Guggenheim at all. The New York page explains which is which, with prices checked on 3 November 2026.
Tours and tickets in the United States
All listings are in New York. Prices are the providers' own 'from' figures.
Electric Pedicab NYC Tour With Flexible Stops, Times Square to Fifth Avenue
The driver is the guide and the route is open: riders add or skip stops between Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building.
Guided Pedicab Tour of Celebrity Homes and Film Locations Around Central Park
Guides point out who lived where around the park, from the Dakota to the Essex House, and which scenes were shot at the Boathouse, Bow Bridge and the Plaza.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour With Walking Stops, 1 to 3 Hours
A private pedicab ride through Central Park with 5-minute walking stops at Strawberry Fields, Bethesda Fountain and Bow Bridge, in 1, 2 or 3 hour versions.
Self-Guided New York City Tour via App: Central Park to Brooklyn Bridge
An app supplies navigation and audio for this self-paced New York route, and the tour can be downloaded to work offline. Stops include Central Park and DUMBO.
Spanish-Language New York Contrasts Tour: Manhattan, Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn
Spanish-guided 8:00 AM departure from Midtown to the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, with Yankee Stadium, street murals and Williamsburg. Ends near Ground Zero.
Upper East Side Architecture Walking Tour of Gilded Age Mansions and the Guggenheim
Gilded Age town houses and Wright's Guggenheim on a two-hour architecture walk from the Frick Collection, with a guide and individual headsets for each guest.
Ratings collected by Viator and Tripadvisor
Planning the visit itself?
Hours, prices, the pay-what-you-wish slot, the closures before the end of 2026 and a table of the neighboring museums.
The other Guggenheim museums on this site
One page each, written from the same checked facts.
Questions about the Guggenheim in the United States
How many Guggenheim museums are there in the United States?
One: the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue in New York. Older outposts in SoHo and Las Vegas are closed, according to secondary sources, though we could not confirm the SoHo closing date.
Is this the museum's website?
No. This is an independent site, not affiliated with the museum or the foundation. The museum's own website is guggenheim.org, and tickets bought through the providers listed here are sold by those providers.
Who designed the New York building?
Frank Lloyd Wright, who was commissioned in 1943. Construction began in 1956 and the museum opened on 21 October 1959.
Who was Hilla Rebay?
The foundation's curator and the director of its first museum, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which opened in 1939.
What stood on Fifth Avenue before the spiral?
The first museum was elsewhere. Wikipedia places the 1939 Museum of Non-Objective Painting at 24 East 54th Street, and the Wright building on Fifth Avenue replaced it as the foundation's home in 1959.
Is the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi open yet?
No. As of 3 November 2026 its scheduled opening is Friday 11 December 2026. Hours, prices and the opening program had not been published when we checked.
When did the Bilbao museum open?
October 1997 on the museum's own pages; Wikipedia gives 18 October. Construction ran from October 1993.
Where do I find prices and opening hours for New York?
On our Guggenheim Museum New York page, with the date we checked them. Hours and prices change with the season, so confirm on the museum's own site before you go.
Data verified on . Foundation history, building history and venue pages read on 3 November 2026; Wikipedia is named wherever it is the only source. Tour data from the providers' listings on the same day. Editorial Policy