Editing Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (section)

==Virtual Building==
In the fall of 1993, architects at Gehry Partners began to use Dassault Systèmes' CATIA software for the schematic design phase of the museum to digitize and model the exterior of the museum project. Essentially, this software calculated point by point the stresses to which materials are subjected, by generating a 3D model showing the different tensions and allowing the values of many structural elements of the museum to be calculated: the steel structure, titanium cladding or foundations, among others. It also helped to automate the cutting of materials such as stone or titanium plates.

The architects applied Master Modeling and Virtual Build Processes they learned from Rick Smith<ref>{{Cite journal|date=June 2014|title=AIA Awards|url=https://www.architectmagazine.com/magazine/2014/june/|journal=Architect|pages=238}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Baudoin|first=Genevieve|date=January 2016|title=A Matter of Tolerance|url=http://theplanjournal.com/|journal=The Plan Journal|volume=0/2016|pages=38, 39}}</ref> and his use of the same techniques on the [[Walt Disney Concert Hall]] during the previous two years.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Digital Fabrication in Architecture, Engineering and Construction|last=Caneparo|first=Luca|publisher=Springer|year=2014|isbn=978-94-007-7137-6|location=New York}}</ref> The success and global awareness of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao ushered in a new era of Virtual Building and was a catalyst for what would become popularly known as [[Building information modeling|Building Information Modeling]] seven years later.

Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic Paul Goldberger shares the words of others that Bilbao "could not have been constructed without CATIA". He further stated that Bilbao "was the first building for which CATIA played a role in almost every aspect of the design and construction process".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry|last=Goldberger|first=Paul|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|year=2015|isbn=978-0-307-70153-4|location=New York|pages=298}}</ref>