THE "ARQUISCULTURE OF CALATRAVA": A POLEMICAL VISION.




Possibly the first one, with contents, in Catalan and who did not speak about literature, faults, etc is an heir of the "Barcelona between the Cerdà’s Plan and the barraquisme" that had read a decade before.
I had the luck of stumbling, in a journey to Switzerland the former year, in the station of trains of Zurich and talking with a passenger while we breakfast in the 6'30 h. of the morning I asked him on several works... and it resulted from Her R. Müller being an architect. The good man explained me that they were a work of an architect who lived in Spain called Calatrava and indicated me some more. He left afterwards... and on going to pay he had paid my breakfast- in the German way obviously. And I thought with Francesc Pujols.........in mist.
When I finished the itinerary I proposed going to see him to their study of Zurich. With the surprise of discovering that he was a Valencian, of my city. He was not there, had made a journey to Paris. The environment was pleasant. I published on the following year the article. They passed a pair of years and him 'n fief famous here. Barcelona, Seville, etc assembled a mini lead-study in Valencia and brought the article with my address. Surprisingly, a day, his secretary calls me to confirm to know me.

Encounters with Santiago: We made a couple of meetings and offered me work for him. And I replied respectfully-what-possibly my architecture would be much more insignificant, but it would be mine and if it worked for him, otherwise I would always be others.
We found once again the dinner of Awards October and already we have never returned to relate.
Now, curiously change some things in the article, above all, because I know better architecture of Gaudi and the less he has done Calatrava recent years, but continued to profess the same devotion to the work of these two geniuses that the first day. I have even heard of Santiago, which is seen, somehow, continued or is inspired by Gaudi.
About articles elaborated on the work of Santiago Calatrava Valls, and signing himself as its first project in Zuric-note a number of shortcomings and / or errors and a lack of depth on the pattern which moves . We turn then, and from a controversial point to discuss them.

If in the last century this term was the consideration that the shape of the building had to adjust to the functions needed to be developed, Calatrava does so without falling into the trivialization that the zoomorfas epidermal behaved like the skin of dragon Casa Batlló and other modernist forms with vegetable and ornamental beyond the drawing of the poetic image of the skeleton of a dog (bus stops at Saint Gallen), the beating of eyelids (doors of the factory Ernsting), valves squid (Halle Jakem) peaks or chicken (covered in the concert hall to Suhr) structures, which are capable of withstanding dynamic efforts, increased scale, it will be to resist, static at a time of eminent pieces of the structure its buildings and compliance space.

In the sense of the term used in the twentieth century, the “organicismo” headed by F. LL. Wright is based to expand spaces from a central core, where appropriate chimneys in the houses of prairie centrifuges spaces. Over time, this nucleus is transparent, implicitly at the Larkin office building in Buffalo (1910) and explicitly in the Guggenheim art museum in New York (1946) where the light flowing from a skylight located on the deck.

Calatrava resumed this issue but centrifugal spaces nearby on the central core, how is the office building on Suhr.

Another factor to highlight prisoner of this current is the interest in the details of all kinds, we see the delicacy and elegance of the unions elements, which constitute a perfectly designed architecture built.
We need to discover in many cases a subtle reference to classic themes, whether typologies circular temples (Tholos) as offices Suhr, either rectangular temples such as Madeleine de Vignon in Paris, the latter paradigm in the front side of Ernsting factory where the three bodies are obvious: socket, the undulating sheet of aluminum board, suggested a grand colonnade, and to engage as a powerful piece of finishing run. It is the transcript to present the classical temples.
Calatrava get a doctorate in technical sciences in Zurich with the theme "flexible structures." This is an issue that long, it seems, what has prompted the study and that is to study the geometry of the elements in dynamic state, look!

If complex to understand is an area regulated in space, as will a gang of steel rods that are shaping every second an area regulated differently from the immediate previous opening and closing the doors of Pier discharge from the factory Ernsting or sculpture "The Eye"?

All knowledge of the structural enjoying would not have the slightest impact if they were not accompanied by the mastery of geometry, as structural elements and surfaces evolve

In space, the reference to the portico is minimal.
Often, the work of Calatrava, refers to industry, and from here to the standard. His works are made to prototype and asset elements that could be produced far from the place of execution, hence the propensity to make isostasy structures. Of more besides, this factor is determinative of the materials used. However, shun of formal boredom that we have come to expect from the industry in aesthetic terms. Evidence of this attitude is the fact that their projects repeatedly carried the outline should be as transporting and assembling the elements.

According to Bruno Zevi, the point essential and characteristic of architecture is to be able to accommodate, namely, to hold internal space, which makes us understand completely the building. While the sculpture, to understand, we need to step around them, not interest anything inside.

In the works of Calatrava happens a strange phenomenon. In his works of architecture step to see the facades, usually with different treatment, totally as if a sculpture is involved.

But if someone has been lucky enough to cross the bridge Bac de Roda, the case opposite happens: we have the feeling of being enveloped by a transparent box defining the cables that pull the arches. At the risk of mistakes send this beautiful bridge to the first draft for the Donaukanal Otto Wagner in Vienna on the Danube, also suspended with arches that support the plate - board traffic, and both curiously with four stairs descending toward the river.
Continued location of Calatrava as a "follower" of the work of Antoni Gaudí is a factor in the work of those who qualify must be at least. The eagerness to framing it, then hang a label to their discovery by critics and architects of international renown, that without a thorough analysis of his work have led to this focus. The reasons that make us diverge from this are:

A)The same Calatrava has declined, ever, this possibility.

B) Structurally architect Gaudi is an empirical, closer to the techniques of the builders of cathedrals that since, despite his good mathematical knowledge and contemporary him both the theory of elasticity and resistance of materials were on the verge. Just remember that in 1919 already swarming by Barcelona Fèlix Cardellach and his "Philosophy of the structures." In addition to remember that Gaudi "estimated" by some cascaded with sandbags placed face down.

C) Another point of divergence is the spirit of industrialization, well above that in the case of Gaudí is nonexistent, except in the vaults of brick flat in uniting the heads of the columns that hold the Plaza del Parque Guell, as it is closer to a methodology craft and a "go inventing" on the fly. Someone might ask this question a century ago was in the crib. It deceives. There is only to list the case of Palau Crystal J. Paxton for the exhibition in London in 1851, or the contemporary Gaudi, as Domenech i Montaner, who this year a century ago, which built the International Hotel for the exhibition in Barcelona in just three months based on a module: tile.

D) Gaudi ignores new materials and their uses structural iron and reinforced concrete, with the exception of the Park Guell, is thrown into more traditional, to the extent classified as the last great architect in stone, as we stand opposed to Calatrava. However, gaudi tends to work with compression structures, Calatrava's all behaviors, stress, which they do to traction, and this has a direct formal involvement. We compared the viaduct of Fr Guell for walks with arcaded hallway of offices to Suhr and the proposed station Staldelhofen.

In the park, the column previous and inclined is the that supported, compression, access to higher traffic and the heads column are connected by straps to bending. A sort of heel, outside widens, access to compression and works well. In Suhr, the strap that binds the head is to pull and tilt the bracket is the head outside that is contrary to the Park Guell. At the station tilt is the same as that of Gaudi, but the heel is in front, serving as a counterpoint to the bracket that holds the marquee, so good point that if we removed the heel to Gaudí's work, the passage would be intact, if they calatravian to do the work, turning completely. It is worth pointing out this wonderful heels of Calatrava, is a pillar articulated by their extremes, with some slenderness in connection with the loading and section, causing the effect known as buckling, which is one that occurs when you press the extremes, with fingers, a rod to make it double. As Goethe would say: the genius is expressed in limitations. The pillar adopts a form of spindle, why?. Because buckling increases in a cross-section, to move away from the edges into a pillar articulated by the edges, arrived at maximum deflection at the center of the bar, so must be gaining in strength through increased section.

However it should be noted points of convergence: the unit because the two fleeing residual spaces and invertebrates, tending toward shaping large room with a consequent desire on structural matters that entails.

This trend is rather a feature of the sociocultural field of membership that a confluence.?

Both are great geometers; Gaudi, with tile, develops paraboloids and hyperboloid (regulated or not) that links masterfully. But Gaudí is an formalist architect in the sense masses. Except in cases like Santa Coloma. Calatrava is, formalist, in the sense linear, namely the central column linear shapes conform the space.

A highlight also the simple nature of the two and with a point of civic rebellion, in which Gaudi, a Republican in youth to fall into a water mysticism alone in the shadow of Eusebi Guell since the Restoration. This spirit rebel is reflected in Calatrava from a European attitude and civilian response, as we have seen lately.

Calatrava, like the other great architects, has managed to draw lessons from the past and combine them wisely, updates to open a loophole in the thick of postmodern stupidity, reconciling new bodies and rationality in a work that offers us a blueprint of the architectural discipline.