Chillida Sculptures

Chillida Leku is a sculpture park in the hills near Hernani, a few kilometres inland from San Sebastián, and it is the most complete place in which to see the work of Eduardo Chillida, the Basque artist who is counted among the most important sculptors of the twentieth century. Chillida was born in San Sebastián in 1924 and died in 2002. He began as a goalkeeper for the local football club, Real Sociedad, before turning to art, and he went on to make monumental works in iron, steel, granite, alabaster and concrete that were placed in cities and landscapes around the world. His forms are abstract and powerful, concerned with space, balance and the relationship between solid and void. Leku means place in Basque, and the name, Chillida’s Place, expresses his wish to create a setting in which his sculptures could be in dialogue with nature.

The park covers about eleven hectares of meadow and woodland, with oak and beech trees, and it opened in 2000. A large number of works, more than forty, are placed in the open air, in positions chosen by the artist, so that each sculpture is seen from many sides, against trees, grass and sky. Some are in iron, with rusted surfaces that harmonise with the autumn leaves, and others in granite, with massive blocks cut into curving forms. The works change in appearance with the light and the seasons. Visitors walk along paths through the park, and the pace is slow and contemplative.

At the centre of the park stands the Zabalaga farmhouse, a sixteenth-century stone farm building that Chillida bought and restored with the help of architects, and it holds indoor galleries. Its massive wooden beams and soaring interior make a striking container for smaller works, among them drawings, collages and sculptures in clay and alabaster, as well as gravitations, a series of works in paper. The building and the park together form a complete expression of the artist’s ideas.

The park was closed in 2011, for financial reasons, and reopened in 2019 after a renovation led by a major international gallery in partnership with the Chillida family, and it is run now as a museum with timed entry. Tickets are booked in advance, since numbers are limited, and the park is open from Thursday to Monday, with hours that may change on holidays. A visit takes about two hours, and bring walking shoes, as the grass can be wet.

One of Chillida’s best-known public works, the Peine del Viento, the Wind Comb, stands on the coast at the end of Ondarreta beach in San Sebastián, where steel forms are anchored into the rocks and the sea sprays through holes in the paving. Visitors who see both the park and the coastal sculpture get a full picture of his work. A bus from the city reaches the area of Hernani.