Calatrava

[genario]

This is one of my favourite architects - Santiago Calatrava. I love his Opera House of Valencia in Spain. I have a picture on the link.

http://www.khm.at/system2E.html?/staticE/page2856.html

Maybe he will design a new Opera House for Cork on the docklands, no?

I hope we can discuss about Calatrava on this page.

[Boyler]

I really admire the James Joyce bridge in Dublin that he designed.

[CM00]

I do quite admire Calatrava's ability to create beautiful objects, almost everything he touches has a delicate, sculptural beauty to it. With regards to that opera house, in that photo it looks quite impressive, however I haven't seen any images of the interior. How is it to work as an opera house? How do you feel inside? Sometimes I think he is still working solely as an engineer, creating form, working in elevations. Thinking solely about beauty and how his design reflects the natural world.

Now this works quite well, when you are designing bridges, stadium roofs and to some extent train stations as most of these do not require much thought about direct human interaction.-For a train station/airport one seems to get away with suggesting motion with great sweeping lines (a la Dulles, washington). It is not really a place, merely a machine for travelling.

In this respect, I think Calatrava still needs to prove himself. His interior spaces all seem to reverberate with the same qualities, white, clean, wide and sculptural. Is it too much to ask that he take a risk and do something different? Perhaps I am ill informed on the matter, but the only Calatrava building which I can think of which has strong, well thought out interiors is the milwaulkee art museum. Interestingly,even that edifice posseses many of the blandness outlined above.

What do other people think? It would be nice to have a bit of debate about him.

[Mark Harrington]

As I live in Milwaukee, I have to reply that yes, indeed, the Calatrava addition
is a fine building. The interiors are of high quality. The interior of the lower level
parking is a great arced rib structure, like you are in the belly of some giant beast;
one of the best parking areas anywhere! The main pavillion is a fantastic space,
however the brise soleil which shourds it is somewhat misnamed in that it is open
during the day and closed at night - that's not right!! But it makes for a very nice
dynamic when the wings are in motion - whatever you call it. Also, on the interior,
as the ribs slope toward the exterior they limit the head room along the main passages
on the East and West. Calatrava knew this and put a 3cm rise in the floor elevation
at the point where the headroom might be a problem. Unfortunately, we need some
additional differetiation (like material, color or texture) because people always
walk to the nice views only to trip on the small step. My only other gripe is the
way he crashed his extrusion into the very classic and wonderful War Memorial by
Eero Saarinen - still my favorite building in Milwukee. There was no thought to
how to handle this properly; although Calatrava did say to his credit that he positioned
the main pavillion space far down the extrusion in order to "respect" the Saarinen.

One other interesting note was that Calatrava was not the structural engineer for
the winged brise soleil, but took over that work when the engineer was not able to
design the structure within Calatrava's parameters. It was as if Santiago knew early on
how he wanted to make it work, set the sizes for supports, the diameter of the main spine,
proportion, etc., but only he had the finesse needed to put the pieces together.

[alan d]

you don't think it's all a bit over the top Mark and like an airport.

Now your talking , the Veterans Memorial Building................. there's a piece of architecture. The way it frames Lake Michigan is superb.

[Mark Harrington]

Well, sure, Alan, you could argue that formally it might
suggest flight = airport. But this is the kind of shake-things-up
architecture we need in the staid midwest to compete with
the Coasts!! I have always loved the columns in the War
Memorial and the way the cantilevers are balanced around
the building. Sad thing is that Milwaukee County owns it and has
deferred a great deal of maintenence. Now, it needs a lot of
exterior work - spalling concrete, the plaza. I fear they will
muck it up.

[alan d]

The Chicago Architecture Foundation took me on a trip recently to see the Calatrava and got very pissed of when I wanted to spend just as much time in the Saarinen building, which took me completely by surprise.

Calatrava's a brilliant man but once you seen one beautifully crafted white whale tail, or heron or shell or whetever there's a sameness about it all, I find. The people of Milwaukee to their credit did a great deal to finish the building I understand

[lexington]

I was reading an autocar magazine recently which interviewed the chief designers at Audi, GM, Ford, Lamborgini and Jaguar (among others) - the designers were asked about various categories of art and culture which influence their designs. Under 'Architecture' it was interesting to note that almost all the designers referenced Santiago Calatrava(!).

Speaking of his vehicles (Model T), Henry Ford once said: "You can have any colour you like, so long as it's black."

Oddly, it would seem of Mr. Calatrava's architecture, 'You can have any colour, so long as it's white!'

[Paul Clerkin]

Just added his BCE Place in Toronto to the site - amazing atrium.



http://canada.archiseek.com/ontario/toronto/bce_place.html

[trace]

Gothic, Jesus... see the 'mist'.

[lexington]

Just added his BCE Place in Toronto to the site - amazing atrium.

http://canada.archiseek.com/ontario/toronto/bce_place.html

Wow!

Edgar Allen Poe's wet dream.

[dzineminded]

Heard he will be designing the tallest building in the world to be sited in Chicago. It is to be taller than the Freedom tower (Liebskin). My gathering is that it is primarily housing. In the article Trump talked of the econimic aspect and stated that, in a post 911 period, such a building will fail due to the lack of interest for fear of living in a "target". I must say, Calatrava justs keeps on going. Once you think he has outdone himself, there he is again. His style of design took a while to grow on me but I now see him as genius.

[Raywibisono]

Calatrava, using creature skeleton metaphor in his new architectural design...magnificent architecture!

[Paul Clerkin]

Heard he will be designing the tallest building in the world to be sited in Chicago. It is to be taller than the Freedom tower (Liebskin). My gathering is that it is primarily housing. In the article Trump talked of the econimic aspect and stated that, in a post 911 period, such a building will fail due to the lack of interest for fear of living in a "target". I must say, Calatrava justs keeps on going. Once you think he has outdone himself, there he is again. His style of design took a while to grow on me but I now see him as genius.

The Fordham Spire
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/calatrava/fordham/fordham.html

[lexington]

Looks very well, a nice and slender design - although I believe the actual occupiable floor-height height still falls short of the Burj al Dubai (Under Construction), the spire will rise to 2,000 feet nonetheless. For a man who expressed a laissez-faire attitude toward highrise, Calatrava seems to be taking it on board pretty seriously these days.

[dzineminded]

I caught a program on the discovery channel (I believe that is where it was) about the Turning Torso. That was an incredible project. The design to build on that was just amazing. Correct me if I am wrong but the Fordham building seems to be a larger scale project of that? Not to discredit Calatrava, but it seems like he is just improving his other design. Much like a stretch limo Hummer, take a already creative thing and make it bigger and better. That may be a poor analogy but you get my point. Also, it doesnt seem to fit the skyline. I understand that there really isnt any skyline for a structure like that. I do not see this being built.

[malec]

Looks very well, a nice and slender design - although I believe the actual occupiable floor-height height still falls short of the Burj al Dubai (Under Construction), the spire will rise to 2,000 feet nonetheless. For a man who expressed a laissez-faire attitude toward highrise, Calatrava seems to be taking it on board pretty seriously these days.

I really like this tower actually and disagree that it doesn't fit. Think it's a great addition because it pushes Chicago architecture in another direction. The location is also very well chosen and I've heard people saying this is the only place this tower is suited for.

BTW I'm pretty sure the burj dubai will be taller spirewise and roofwise. I think it's supposed to be 700m to spire and have 160 storeys altogether.

[aaron]

Well, sure, Alan, you could argue that formally it might
suggest flight = airport. But this is the kind of shake-things-up
architecture we need in the staid midwest to compete with
the Coasts!! I have always loved the columns in the War
Memorial and the way the cantilevers are balanced around
the building. Sad thing is that Milwaukee County owns it and has
deferred a great deal of maintenence. Now, it needs a lot of
exterior work - spalling concrete, the plaza. I fear they will
muck it up.

Mark i have to agree...i grew up and was educated in architecture in the midwest, and i think its great to see calatrava come that far to really blow some fresh aire into the lungs of american architecture...i was working at a firm in minneapolis that was sponsoring calatrava for the gold medal in 2002-3 and therefore he sent his watercolors of the MAM to our office, such elegance from a person with a phd in engineering as well as studied in architecture. i think he is a great combination, and i do find him venturing out, he is just a little larger scaled on most of his projects than most people consider....i am living in lisbon now and get to frequent his oriente train station, the guy has a deep, scary but extraordinary mind... i like to try and imagine he and gaudi in a design charrette for a starbucks...

his ramming into the saarinen building worried me as well, but looks more familiar when approached from the european standpoint. given the age of things, and speaking mainly from what ive seen in portugal, there is always evident this amazing contrast between old and new, dark light, etc...portugal is the land of extremes, and other countries in europe are not so different... in the us we are not used to such old things, and we hopefully strive to preserve whats left before it turns to plastic... i am sure santiago did however consider the sensetive issues of the union....thanks mark take care