Taschen's XXL monograph traces the work of Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who combines architecture, engineering, sculpture and organic forms in spectacular, harmonious and poetic designs.

Santiago Calatrava Valls is one of the "starchitects," like Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry, or Zaha Hadid. This native of Valencia, now based in Switzerland, made a name for himself by creating aerodynamic and organic architectures where poetry vies with sculpture and the living world. He designed bridges, train stations, towers, airports, museums, and stadiums—places for encounters and exchanges that connect people in a constant flow of movement. Taschen and author Philip Jodidio, who has written several books on major architects such as Shigeru Ban (Acumen no. 48), pay tribute to this extraordinary master in a limited-edition, XXL monograph as grandiose as his architectural follies.

SCULPTURES IN ARCHITECTURE

Architect, engineer, painter, sculptor, and even ceramicist, the 73-year-old is all of these things. He has forged a rich and eclectic academic path, combining art, architecture, and engineering into a coherent and expressive whole. After studying drawing and painting, then architecture and urban planning, Santiago Calatrava quickly added a doctorate in civil engineering to his impressive resume.
Page after page, his designs, which he elevated to the status of works of art, demonstrate his taste for the sculptural and the spectacular. It must be said that among his important influences were architects like Le Corbusier and Robert Maillart, but also and especially theoretical physicists (Albert Einstein), artists, sculptors and painters (Alexander Calder, Auguste Rodin, Joan Miró, Francisco de Goya, Antoni Gaudí, Leonardo da Vinci).

Given his architectural achievements, the final result is hardly surprising; the Catalan virtuoso constantly questions the dimension of time, mass, movement, statics, and biomorphism. All of them thus take on the appearance of airy, slender, geometric, and undulating sculptures.

BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND COMPLEXITY

His creations evoke for the viewer a whole world of imagery drawn from the human body or nature. The Lyon-Saint-Exupéry TGV station and the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in Manhattan recall the movement of a bird's wings. The Gare de l'Oriente in Lisbon seems to have platforms covered in trees. The Bodegas y Bebidas winery in Spain takes the form of undulating waves thanks to the movement of its aluminum roof. The City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia is inspired by the shape of a human eye, a recurring theme in his work. Not to mention the Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin, which resembles a harp, or the Valencia Opera House, conceived as a series of random volumes, which embraces surreal forms while also evoking, in some respects, the prow of a ship. As for the Turning Torso in Sweden, this building is undoubtedly the most representative of his interest in the human body, sculpture, and the art of stillness and movement.

While the rest of his work is equally impressive, from the Athens Olympic sports complex to the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, this remarkable project has nonetheless earned him considerable criticism in recent years for budget overruns and delays. Nevertheless, throughout the pages of this beautiful, oversized book, his watercolor drawings combined with photographs highlight
highlighting a real dynamic power at the scale of the building.

CALATRAVA. COMPLETE WORKS 1979–TODAY BY PHILIP JODIDIO
TASCHEN, SEPTEMBER 2024
TASCHEN.COM