(Gwathmey Siegel Associates) and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice (Leila and Massinto Vignelli) and the opening of a new branch, the Guggenheim Museum SoHo (Arata Isozaki). To these three museums wlich now comprise the Guggenheutu empire (each oversoen by the SRGF and directed by Krens), a Spanish counterart will soon be added. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (GMB), designed by Frank o. Gehry, is due to open this coming0ctober. Without a doubt, the GMB represents a major victory for Krerst the tenuous nature of several other high-pro- tik, high-risk saselli e projects threatened his own (and the Guggenheim's) credibility. These preious iutiarives have so far falled to gel unainly because they just as often frighten of would-be backers as tempt daring entrepreneurs. such ventures, the earliest and best-kawwn is MASS MOCA, KTUms's scheme to convert a forner texmike printing mill in Nartla Adams, Mass., into the world's largest museun of contemporary art (Krecus conceived MASS MOCA in the mid-1990s while still director of Willams Colege Museum of Art (see AiA, July 8). MASS MOKA bunguished after Republican gov-