Architecture inspires and takes its inspiration from art so it should not be surprising to come across an architect like Santiago Calatrava, who blends art and architecture to such dramatic extent that it is often difficult to determine where art leaves off and architecture begins. Concentrating his attentions on those forms of structures that highlight the progress of mankind, Calatrava attempts to inspire other human beings to new heights of spiritual and natural connection through the form of his works. While a brief biography of Santiago Calatrava provides some insight into his influences and the major theories that have affected his work, it is through the study of the work itself that one can truly begin to gain an appreciation for how Calatrava manages to address the human within his work. Originating for a small rural area in Spain, Calatrava has taken inspiration from some of the most creative architects of the past generation and create new works of art that remain functional as public structures. Whether creating something as seemingly mundane as a communication tower or constructing a high-rise apartment building intended to shelter the multitudes, Calatrava manages to convey the beauty of the natural form on an individual as well as cultural level.
Proving that great minds don’t necessarily have to come from the great cities, Santiago Calatrava Valls was born in a rural area of Valencia Spain known as Benimamet on July 28, 1951. Having an early love for architecture and building, he completed his undergraduate work at the Architecture School and Art and Crafts School in Valencia, finishing in 1975. From there, he enrolled in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich where he gained knowledge in civil engineering. Following his graduation from this prestigious school in 1981, Calatrava launched his already prestigious architectural career by dedicating himself largely to public works projects, such as the construction of bridges and train stations (Winkelman & Duncan, 2002). Through his work, Calatrava has proven to be either an architect with the soul of a sculptor or a sculptor with the soul of an architect. His influences include such innovators as Felix Candela, who brought Spanish architecture to world attention, and Antonio Gaudi, another Spanish architect who had challenged many of the standards of the Barcelona elite in the execution of his designs. Another strong influence proves to be le Corbusier with his emphasis upon organic forms (Eardley, 2006). While Calatrava obviously takes inspiration from these earlier architects, he continues to remain focused upon the human body and the natural world in the creation of his structures, always keeping the elements of engineering firmly in mind as he considers the use of the finished space and the appeal of its final form.
The turning point that made Calatrava a big name in the world rather than just another architect came with his construction of the Montjuic Communications Tower in Barcelona just in time for the 1992 Olympics to be held there the following year. The tower is a somewhat minimalist representation of an athlete’s arm as it stretches up to carry aloft the official Olympic torch, a highly appropriate theme as the tower was constructed with the specific aim of enabling television coverage of the Olympic games to be based in that location. Other interpretations have held that it is the exhausted athlete, kneeling upon the ground in physical collapse, yet still holding high the torch of the games. In providing a tower that can offer not one, but two possible interpretations leading to the concepts and symbols involved in the Olympic games for which it was built, Calatrava has already engaged the community through his work. Although he managed to successfully incorporate these event-specific ideas into the design of the tower, he also kept an open mind about the future of the tower once the games had moved on. The tower is specifically oriented to work with the natural forces of the sun to provide a giant sundial clock for passersby utilizing the Europa square as a means of indicating the hour (Tischhauser, Stanislaus & von Moos, 1998). The tower makes a connection with the past through its employment of Gaudi’s mosaic technique in which broken tiles are used to create mosaic patterns and images at the tower’s base. Thus, Calatrava manages to connect the individual with the symbol of the Olympic spirit itself as well as assuring further connection between the individual and nature well into the future as this icon of high technology, housing satellite dishes and geared toward mass communication, becomes connected in the mind with the most natural of geometric forms in the grace of its curves and the most basic of human technology in its incorporation of the sundial effect.
The extreme influence of nature upon his work, particularly the natural forms and movements of the other inhabitants of the earth, can perhaps best be examined within his sculptural works and drawings. Rather than rejecting the forms of nature or apologizing for its use as other artists of the modernist movements have done, “Calatrava welcomes the analogy to living creatures, which leaves him open to the charge of sentimentality. His watercolor drawings of human and animal forms manifest this affinity in a somewhat more representational mode, no less rhythmic and fluid” (Eardley, 2006). This is perhaps better seen in a comparison between his artistic works and their translation into architectural form as is illustrated in a study of the planetarium in Valencia L’Hemisferic. The building serves as a laserium, planetarium and IMAX theater within the larger City of Arts and Science complex. It provides more than 900 square meters of screen for viewing various media and the building itself, undeniably in the shape of an eye, emphasizes this function (Valencia, 2008). Looking at the building from the other side of a small reflecting lake, it seems as if the building is looking back with a clear-eyed and open invitation. However, the building retains its man-made, structural distance through subtly altered details giving the building a human-like quality rather than a human one. All of this has been traced in progression through his artwork to his design stage into finished architectural structure. “His wonderfully fluid and varied watercolor and graphite sketchbook drawings make it abundantly clear that his sources are frequently anatomical. His studies of human eyes are progressively simplified and finally vastly enlarged to create the basic forms of the planetarium building of his City of Arts and Sciences … While there are vast differences in scale, consistent reduction of anatomical form (such as the arc of the eyelid) to geometric components, and the altered vantage point of the viewer, the analogy from obviousness is prevented” (Eardley, 2006). Calatrava thus establishes a connection with the individual through this very frank and unflinching architectural glace across the placid waters and encourages interaction with nature and the sciences through its structural usage.
Having established that nature is undeniably a focus for Calatrava, it is nevertheless a different focus than that seen in the works of others, such as Le Corbusier. Eardley (2006) points out how Calatrava’s sculpture differs significantly from that of Le Corbusier in that Le Corbusier, when taking inspiration from a form such as a bird, designs all elements of the piece with the idea of the bird firmly fixed. By contrast, Calatrava’s bird-inspired piece remains rooted within the spirit of the human form and imagines, from that point, the birdlike attributes that would give the necessary lift. In keeping with this foundational understanding of the artist, it is possible to see how the designs themselves, as in the planetarium discussed above, typically will take their inspiration from the human form and creative artwork first, such as in the Twisted Torso.
Gorel Espelund (2006) tells the story behind Switzerland’s ‘Turning Torso’ apartment block as having originated with a Calatrava sculpture. “In 1996, the Spanish sculptor and architect Santiago Calatrava created a design he called the Twisting Torso – a twisting human form consisting of a number of cubes … The form president of HSB [a housing organization in Sweden] had the idea for the building when he saw Calatrava’s sculpture in a brochure. It did not take long before he traveled to Switzerland to discuss with Calatrava the possibility of transferring the sculptural concept to a twisted building” (Espelund, 2006). Although not truly appearing to be a human form, the apartment building appears as if a giant hand stretched down and twisted the rectangular top of a rectangular building 90 degrees while allowing the foot of the building to remain anchored in place. However, even were the building created of such malleable stuff as would allow this to happen without causing breakage, the end result would not be as graceful or attractive as Calatrava’s design. The difference, again, is in the seemingly small details in which the sculptor appears within the architect. The faces of the building are all slightly curved and diagonal supports provide it with uplifting energy. Even the diagonal lines of the corners are permitted a gentle curved appearance. Inspired by humans, the building retains the soft curves of the human or natural world while attending to the high volume needs of the area.
Like his countrymen and the architects who inspired him, Calatrava is an artisan extraordinaire in that he engages in many different forms of art as he expresses his creative ideas. His early training in architecture has enabled him to transfer many of the ideas he’s had in art into solidly constructed landmarks that are compelling in and of themselves. Strictly utilitarian structures, such as the Montjuic Communications Tower in Barcelona, are transformed under Calatrava’s direction, into structures that provide long term multiple benefit to the people of the area. Part of this long vision can be attributed to his sculptor’s eye in which he understands that a structure built remains a structure to be seen. By studying his sculpture further, one can begin to understand how his artistic vision is first developed through non-architectural studies of nature and then slowly develop, through a series of abstractions and simplifications, into a comforting and entirely engaging structure. This sort of progression can be traced through Calatrava’s sculpture both as he intentionally converts his natural forms into structures, as in his studies for the human eye and the construction of the planetarium in Valencia, and as the connections accidentally occur, as in the development of the design for the ‘Turning Torso’ building in Sweden. By remaining focused on the human and otherwise natural forms of nature, Calatrava is able to conceive of designs that remain interesting to the intellect, inviting to the user, comforting to the viewer and humanistic in its identification and yet still retain a sense of architectural element that provides it with the just enough distance and abstraction to keep it from becoming frightening.
Works Cited
Eardley, Cynthia. “Santiago Calatrava.” The Brooklyn Rail. February 2006.
Espelund, Gorel. “The ‘Turning Torso’ is Sweden’s Newest Landmark.” Concrete Monthly. January 2006.
Tischhauser, Anthony, Stanislaus, & von Moos. Calatrava – Public Buildings. Basel, Switzerland: Birkhouser Publishers, 1998.
Valencia City Guide. “The City of Arts and Sciences.” (2008). Web.
Winkelman, Victoria & Kami Duncan. “Biography: Santiago Calatrava.” SMU News. 2002.