A biography for Santiago Calatravahasn’t been written yet.
“New York is not a place that lets you be indifferent. New York is this kind of place that, wherever you go, wherever you move, you are always confronted by your own time.”
“Working with artistic people is very special, especially when they are so professional.”
“I have always tried to create bridges that are more than a connecting structure - places in their own right.”
“In my opinion, as an engineer, a bridge is the most difficult thing you can do. You are not working in the direction of gravity but against it - so the problem opposes the solution.”
“I've always had a dream about New York. New York is an island... those bridges... the skyline... the dynamism.”
“We're used to thinking of force as a stable phenomenon, but it has a cinematic variable, which is acceleration.”
“Bridges represent archetypal problems. They are artifacts that bring you across or around an obstacle. So they have an unbelievable force.”
“Something that's very important is to preserve the sense of surprise, the sense of discovery. The eye of the person you are talking to, your shadow on the ground. It's important not to get suffocated by all the things in life and lose that sense of surprise.”
“I visited Notre Dame at 11 in the morning and the sun was entering through the south rose window, it was so impressive. This is when architecture can be king and give people sensations, like music.”
“Because of the nature of the profession of architecture, the art of architecture nourishes itself from other disciplines.”
“When I moved to Switzerland to study at ETH Zurich I became fascinated by Swiss architecture.”
“Women are the salt of our lives. They give it flavour.”
“My architecture is very much place-related.”
“When I found I could not figure something out, I decided to learn about it, until I knew as much as I could. It's my way.”
“You have to live with the necessities of other people.”
“A first building is like a first novel, it is always autobiographical.”
“As an architect, you do not have control of who will build the building and who will have the capability.”
“I don't see any difference between architecture and engineering. It's the same profession.”
“Valencia is a pure Mediterranean city; it is a city like Naples or Palermo, like Rome a little bit. Walking in the old town has a little bit of the flavor of the old city of Rome.”
“For the first project I did in North America, I was asked as an artist, not as an architect, to collaborate on a big development in the heart of Toronto. I was working with other artists and was in charge of giving form to a street, and I proposed a galleria.”