Santiago Calatrava

“You must understand the difference between being an architect and a politician. Architecture is a profession of perseverance. You have to come through. The politician is there to blame someone.”

“When I work on sculpture, I don't have to worry about function. When I work on a piece of architecture, I must think about function all the time.”

“The function of arts centers goes far beyond being places for performance. They might not be explicitly religious, but they are civic and social spaces.”

“The idea of spirituality is difficult to discuss.”

“I've never been interested in pure movement or pure stability, but in the unstable.”

“The Taj Mahal is a monument to love in all cultures.”

“Not only did America invent the skyscraper, it invented the skyline.”

“You could say that I had become possessed, in the classical sense, by the art of the great architects of the past. And that led me to engineering.”

“Building a bridge, in my opinion, is a symbolic gesture, linked with the needs of people who cross over it, and with the idea of overcoming or surmounting obstacles. A modern bridge can also be a work of art. It helps to shape our daily lives and becomes a vital experience for all the people who use it.”

“In the 19th and 20th centuries we saw nature as something to use to our profit, but the attitude of man towards nature in the 21st century will be a bit different.”

“Architecture is one of the art forms best able to improve and revitalise cities both artistically and functionally.”

“I have built already seven very large railway stations: one in Italy; two in Belgium; and in France, and in Switzerland, in Portugal, and also in the United States. And what happens is that stations are not things that come from one day to another, it takes many years.”

“My goal is always to create something exceptional that enhances cities and enriches the lives of the people who live and work in them.”

“The first significant work I did was a railway station in Zurich called Stadelhofen.”

“Rio de Janeiro has captured my imagination.”

“The Huashan project is a clear example of how an urban element, key to the successful growth of the city, can at the same time improve the quality of life for its citizens, thanks to an integration of all three bridges and the creation of boulevards on the banks of the canal.”

“The bones of my architecture are very much related to the structure, to the physical fact of how a building can stand up; it's also related to geometry and a certain understanding of the architecture in which there is a balance between expression and function.”

“I paint and work as a sculptor, and I see architecture as an art... If you follow this approach you can use techniques to the service of man and to the service of an artistic idea, and beauty.”

“Airports need an identity, a main hall that defines the dignity of the space and allows people to move fluidly throughout its ancillary parts.”

“The reality is that throughout my career I've tackled projects in Spain that I'm proud of.”