Santiago Calatrava. Portrait by Jacqueline Roberts
The beauty and purity of form of Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava?s buildings around the world belie the marvels of engineering that he brings to his show-stopping designs, as well as sometimes the controversies over budget overspends, design flaws and construction delays. But, as Mark C. O?Flaherty finds when he speaks to the architect, his extravagant vision never loses sight of each project?s singular purpose
Few things truly warrant the term ?sensational?. Santiago Calatrava?s architecture demands it. You don?t look at his structures, you experience them. He engineers a feeling. Each project has its own potent energy, from the exhilarating elongated archery bows of his Puente de la Mujer in Buenos Aires and Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin, to the balletic falcon silhouette of one of his most recent works, the UAE Pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai. ?Look, let me show you something,? he says, sitting in the garden of his home in Zurich. ?See?"? Taking a finger to his iPad, he draws the outline of a bird in flight, with curlicued feathers, reminiscent of a Cocteau sketch. ?And here is my signature?? Again, he creates an effortless swoosh and a soaring gesture on screen. ?Birds were a big part of my childhood. I grew up in a house next to a tower full of doves and watched them come and go. Using nature as an approach to architecture has always fascinated me. Not in a decorative way, but as a purity of spirit.? ...