The Secret of Philanthropy
By Philip Jodidio. Excerpt from the book "Santiago Calatrava. Complete Works 1979-2007"
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"I started out wanting to go to art school," recalls Santiago Calatrava."Then one day, I went to buy some things in a stationary store in Valencia, and I saw a little book with beautiful colors. It had yellow and orange ellipses on a blue background, and I bought it immediately. It turned out to be about Le Corbusier, whose work was a discovery for me. I saw images of the concrete stairways in the Unité d'Habitation, and I said to myself, what an extraordinary sense of form. The point of the book was to show the artistic aspects of the architect's work. As a result of buying it, I transferred to architecture school."
Born near Valencia in 1951, Calatrava went to primary and secondary school there. Beginning in 1959, he also attended the Arts and Crafts School, where he started formal learning in drawing and painting.When he was 13, his family took advantage of the recent opening of the borders of Franco's Spain, and sent him to France as an exchange student. After graduating from high school in Valencia, he went to Paris to attend the École des Beaux-Arts, but he arrived in 1968, in the midst of the student uprising. He returned to Valencia and, seduced by a small colorful book, enrolled in the Escuela Tècnica Superior de Arquitectura, where he got a degree in architecture and did postgraduate work in urbanism.
With simple forms he showed that it is possible to create a strong content and to elicit an emotional response
Where others might have ended their studies, Calatrava decided to continue. Attracted by the mathematical rigor that he perceived in certain works of historic architecture, and feeling that his training in Valencia had given him no clear direction, he decided to begin postgraduate studies in civil engineering and enrolled in 1975 at the ETH (Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich. He received his Ph.D. in 1979. This decision certainly changed his life in many ways. It was during this period that he met and married his wife, Robertina Marangoni, who was a law student in Zurich. Professionally speaking, the keys to Santiago Calatrava's current activity are also to be found in Zurich. As he says, "The desire to start over from zero was extremely strong for me. I was determined to set aside all of what I worked with in architecture school and to learn to draw like an engineer and to think like one too. I was fascinated by the concept of gravity and resolute in feeling that it was necessary to work with simple forms. I could say that my taste for simplicity in engineering comes in part from my observation of the work of the Swiss engineer Robert Maillart.With simple forms he showed that it is possible to create a strong content and to elicit an emotional response.With the proper combination of force and mass, you can create emotion."
Page [1] [2] [3]
Page [1] [2] [3]
"I started out wanting to go to art school," recalls Santiago Calatrava."Then one day, I went to buy some things in a stationary store in Valencia, and I saw a little book with beautiful colors. It had yellow and orange ellipses on a blue background, and I bought it immediately. It turned out to be about Le Corbusier, whose work was a discovery for me. I saw images of the concrete stairways in the Unité d'Habitation, and I said to myself, what an extraordinary sense of form. The point of the book was to show the artistic aspects of the architect's work. As a result of buying it, I transferred to architecture school."
Born near Valencia in 1951, Calatrava went to primary and secondary school there. Beginning in 1959, he also attended the Arts and Crafts School, where he started formal learning in drawing and painting.When he was 13, his family took advantage of the recent opening of the borders of Franco's Spain, and sent him to France as an exchange student. After graduating from high school in Valencia, he went to Paris to attend the École des Beaux-Arts, but he arrived in 1968, in the midst of the student uprising. He returned to Valencia and, seduced by a small colorful book, enrolled in the Escuela Tècnica Superior de Arquitectura, where he got a degree in architecture and did postgraduate work in urbanism.
With simple forms he showed that it is possible to create a strong content and to elicit an emotional response
Where others might have ended their studies, Calatrava decided to continue. Attracted by the mathematical rigor that he perceived in certain works of historic architecture, and feeling that his training in Valencia had given him no clear direction, he decided to begin postgraduate studies in civil engineering and enrolled in 1975 at the ETH (Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich. He received his Ph.D. in 1979. This decision certainly changed his life in many ways. It was during this period that he met and married his wife, Robertina Marangoni, who was a law student in Zurich. Professionally speaking, the keys to Santiago Calatrava's current activity are also to be found in Zurich. As he says, "The desire to start over from zero was extremely strong for me. I was determined to set aside all of what I worked with in architecture school and to learn to draw like an engineer and to think like one too. I was fascinated by the concept of gravity and resolute in feeling that it was necessary to work with simple forms. I could say that my taste for simplicity in engineering comes in part from my observation of the work of the Swiss engineer Robert Maillart.With simple forms he showed that it is possible to create a strong content and to elicit an emotional response.With the proper combination of force and mass, you can create emotion."
Page [1] [2] [3]
Santiago Calatrava, Complete Works 1979-2007
Hardcover, 30.8 x 39 cm (12.1 x 15.4 in.), 536 pages
$ 150.00
$ 150.00
Master of Form: Santiago Calatrava’s fusion of architecture, art and engineering (Complete Works 1979-2007)
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