A biography for Santiago Calatravahasn’t been written yet.
“A new building should deliver a feeling of hope.”
“The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is for the community of San Francisco. And the Brooklyn Bridge, which is one of the most magnificent bridges ever built, is also a monument to the community, you see.”
“It is an exceptional event to build a cathedral - it must withstand several lifetimes.”
“I just want to build the best buildings. It's not about me, it's about the buildings, creating a space where society can gather and marvel in beauty and nature.”
“The world of sculpture precedes by many years the world of architecture.”
“I did not want to do stereotypical buildings.”
“Like Grand Central Station, which is a marvelous building, the design and engineering of the Oculus will endure for many generations to come.”
“My private work is touched by this destiny of understanding that architecture and engineering have a social character and can serve the community.”
“As a student I travelled around the Mediterranean - the Greek islands and Salerno on the south coast of Italy.”
“If I was not born in this lifetime in New York, certainly in a previous life, I was a New Yorker.”
“My closest partner and the person I have been working with for 35 years has been my wife. She not only supported me and helped me but also framed my life.”
“For people of the younger generation, the 21st century has started for them with a positive sign that Valencia is and will continue to be a very modern city.”
“My ambition is to give Oakland's cathedral a universal character independent of the Catholic Church.”
“New York is the city of the 21st century.”
“There is so much vulgarity in the everyday, that when somebody has the pretension to do something extraordinary for the community, then you have to suffer.”
“I like the word monument, because the word monument is a Latin word.”
“I would like to be an artist who works in a very closed ambience.”
“Architecture is a code. It's a pure code, derived from the dimensions of nature.”
“I have tried to get close to the frontier between architecture and sculpture and to understand architecture as an art.”
“Imagine for a second that the Golden Gate had not been built. This place in the San Francisco Bay would be one of the many beautiful places along the Pacific Coast - but that's all. Once you put the bridge there, you distinguish it from any other place in the world.”