Santiago Calatrava

Santiago Calatrava (Benimámet, Valencia 1951) is undoubtedly one of the Spanish engineers and architects who has made the greatest international impact. After beginning his studies at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios and the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos, he enrolled at the Escuela de Arquitectura in the Polytechnic University in Valencia, and in 1975 he qualified in civil engineering at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich. It was there, in Switzerland, that he set up his first engineering and architecture studio in 1981. His outstanding architectural projects include the main railway station in Zürich, the roof of the Post Office in Lucerne, bridges in Barcelona (Bach de Roda), Valencia (Nueve de Octubre) and Seville (El Alamillo), the Montjuïc communications tower in Barcelona, the high-speed terminal in Lyons airport, and, more recently, the City of Art and Science in Valencia. In his sculptures, which he makes from materials such as precious woods, marble and metal, Calatrava develops the conclusions of years of study, of drawings and sketches, where not only are concepts of architecture resolved but also unexpected elements emerge. His formal grammar is organic, not in the sense of reproducing animal or plant forms but in that of applying structural solutions already tried out by nature, such as the structural complementarity of bones and muscles or the sets of articulations in the skeletons of vertebrates. Forces and tensions are materialised not only as mechanical actions but also as a reflection of the parallel existence of a suggested symbolic world. This exhibition is the first to be held in a Spanish museum to show Santiago Calatrava’s sculptures and drawings, most of which have not been shown to the public previously.