Santiago calatrava brief biography of benjamin
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In professional practice for just 20 years, he currently has offices in Paris, Zurich, and Valencia, where he works on a number of large-scale architectural projects, on establishing his work as a standard by which later engineering design will be measured, and on winning countless awards including the 1992 Gold Medal of the Institute of Structural Engineers and the 1987 Auguste Perret UIA Prize.
However, Calatrava saw this as an opportunity to show off the imperfections of the site. Calatrava avoids the apathetic acceptance of established forms. The site the station was to occupy was challenging in that it varied greatly in elevation from end to end and was curved along its length. Nearly all of Calatrava’s projects tackle complicated technical issues and are resolved in surprisingly elegant ways.
Iconic and memorable, they contribute to turning their author into a world-wide famous star architect, while also transforming the Spanish city into a coveted global tourism destination.
Santiago Calatrava’s projects, in fact, can be above all described as objects, each one showing its own, accomplished shape.
The extraordinary weight of the mast (steel filled with concrete) angling back at 58 degrees was enough to support the roadbed without the need for counter-stay cables.
Santiago Calatrava Valls (born 28 July 1951) is a Spanish architect, sculptor and structural engineer whose principal office is in Zurich, Switzerland. The bridge’s north-leaning mast doubles as a sundial.
The station he designed is left open to reveal the entire workings of the structure to the viewer. Calatrava's entry into high-rise design began with an innovative 54-story-high twisting tower called Turning Torso (2005), located in Malmo, Sweden.
Style
Calatrava's style has been heralded as bridging the division between structural engineering and architecture.
Nonetheless, his style is also very personal and derives from numerous studies of the human body and the natural world.
As both an architect and an engineer, Calatrava easily identifies with both disciplines. In the Milwaukee Museum building, Calatrava’s affinity for Finnish-born Eero Saarinen’s work (namely the curvilinear TWA [Trans World Airline] terminal at John F.Kennedy Airport) as an Expressionist modernist aesthetic is clear.
In 2002 his first American bridge was realized at the Turtle Bay Exploration Center in Redding, California, linking different sides of the park with the Sacramento River Trail System. The ingenious riverfront concrete and steel structure is topped with glass “fins” that open and close depending on exterior light; the architect has likened its movement to a bird in flight.
His Montjuic Communications Tower in Barcelona, Spain (1991) in the heart of the 1992 Olympic site, as well as the Allen Lambert Galleria in Toronto, Canada (1992), were important works and turning points in his career, leading to a wide range of commissions.
In the projects, he continues a tradition of Spanish modernist engineering that includes Felix Candela and Antonio Gaudi. In 1981, after completing his doctoral thesis, "On the Foldability of Space Frames", he started his architecture and engineering practice.
Career
Calatrava's early career was largely dedicated to bridges and train stations, whose designs elevated the status of civil engineering projects to new heights.
The Stadelhofen Station in Zurich presented Calatrava with a unique chance to make a mark on a city.
Although Calatrava’s work might be best characterized by the futuristic forms of his famous bridge designs, his oeuvre spreads far beyond the engineering wonders he has built.