Since its titanium-clad exhibition halls opened in 1997, the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao has been a symbol of the rebirth of the northern industrial Spanish city.
The vast, twisting spaces designed by the architect Frank Gehry have placed Bilbao squarely on the tourism map. The museum has been considered such a success, attracting tourists and their money from all over the world, that cities throughout Spain have tried to emulate it, inviting other renowned architects to create splashy modern art museums in hopes of repeating the so-called Guggenheim effect.
But the museum's metallic glow has been tarnished in recent months by accusations of financial mismanagement that has cost it millions of euros. The Basque regional parliament has convened a special session next week to decide who is to be held politically accountable for the problems.
They include a former financial director on trial for embezzling €500,000 (£448,000) during the past decade, a misjudged currency deal that cost the museum €7m, and accusations of overpayment for pieces in the permanent collection, such as Jeff Koons emblematic flowering Puppy, that overlooks the museum.
Officials at the museum are quick to play down the impact of the financial problems. "The museum is in perfect shape financially," said Juan Ignacio Vidarte, director of the Guggenheim Bilbao since its inception, adding that the former financial director had already repaid 80% of the amount embezzled.
The reason for the sudden political storm, he told the Guardian, was that, in the run-up to regional elections next year, opposition parties were trying to make the showpiece of the Basque government look bad.
Vidarte added that the opposition parties were also looking for excuses for the government to take greater control over management of the Guggenheim, the only museum in the Basque country that does not depend entirely on public funds.
But politicians have called for the emergency 22 December session to scrutinise the situation. Arturo Aldecoa, a member of the opposition Popular party, has called for a closer examination of the "troubling management errors" at the museum, which he believes have been obscured by its international success.
He also criticised the "erratic" purchasing sprees of the former director of the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, Thomas Krens, who Aldecoa accused of accepting the asking price of his favourite artists without consultation.
The Basque parliament first began to cast a critical eye on this shining success story when a poor currency deal came to light last year.
The museum lost around €7m in a currency deal to purchase The Matter of Time, a $20m series of monumental, spiralling sculptures by the American artist Richard Serra. The museum signed a bank contract to buy dollars at a fixed exchange rate, in fear that the dollar would become more expensive over time and the museum would no longer be able to buy the sculptures, Vidarte said. In fact, the value of the dollar plummeted.
In April, the museum discovered that its former financial director, Roberto Cearsolo, had allegedly embezzled nearly €500,000 during the past decade.
"He forged signatures and changed accounting documents afterwards," said Vidarte. Nobody noticed, he said, partly because the amount was "insignificant", compared to the €100m Cearsolo handled over the course of 10 years.
"When we discovered it, we fired him immediately and took him to court," Vidarte said. Cearsolo has since repaid €400,000, Vidarte added.
Cearsolo admitted the charges in a letter to the Guggenheim director, reproduced in Basque news wire services and newspapers. "Since the year 1998, I have been appropriating diverse quantities of money in my own benefit for the total sum of €486,979,38," he wrote.
"To dispose of the above quantities, I have used bank transfers on some occasions and bank cheque on others. In the latter case, I proceeded to sign as if I were the authorised person."
The controversy did not end there, however. When news of the alleged embezzlement reached the Basque parliament, MPs combed the museum's records and discovered curatorial reports accusing the Guggenheim's management of overpaying for several pieces, including Large Blue Anthropometry, by Yves Klein, which cost €2.7m, and Jeff Koons' Puppy, which cost €1.5m.
Vidarte denied that the Guggenheim Museum had overpaid for the pieces in question. "Those prices were based on market valuations from Sothebys and Christies," he said. "Today the value of the collection is worth two or three times the amount we paid."