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while living in a zurich dormitory, [santiago calatrava] helped a veterinary student with drawings for his dissertation. in exchange, the veterinarian gave him the skeleton of a dog, which the calatravas' oldest son, rafael, now 23, named fifi. mr. calatrava hung the skeleton in his zurich office.
it proved a fitting gift. after receiving his ph.d. in 1980, he quickly won a commission to design a train station in zurich. that building introduced the skeletonlike forms that became his trademark. studying spinal columns, birds in flight and even fluttering eyelids, mr. calatrava had found a way to create buildings that suggested movement—perfect for airports, train stations and bridges ... of course there are detractors. the british architecture writer hugh aldersey-williams said, "architects sneer that calatrava is an engineer, while engineers dismiss him as a sculptor." david cohn, an american architecture critic living in madrid, says of the tenerife auditorium: "what is this large tongue or tentacle looming over the whole work? is it an orchid? a sea monster? calatrava doesn't take artistic control of the subliminal suggestions these works provoke." he adds that giving the wing a purpose would have improved it. "function," he says, "disciplines expression."
peter reed, curator of architecture and design at the museum of modern art in new york, disagrees. "if you're going to criticize calatrava," he said, "you need to criticize a lot of other people, including frank gehry, on the same grounds." mr. calatrava's buildings "make you aware you're someplace special," he added, and praised mr. calatrava for bringing inspiring architecture to the civic realm. "it's refreshing that his buildings aren't prada boutiques, but places for the public," he said.
and if the public loves them, mr. calatrava always sees something he could have done better. "buildings," he says, joking, "never look as good as fifi."
but his buildings may come closer than anyone's; they are the stars of "zoomorphic," a current exhibition at london's victoria and albert museum that focuses on a supposed "new wave" of animal-inspired buildings. in the show's catalog, mr. aldersey-williams compares the milwaukee museum to a "shark's gill basket" and mr. calatrava's lyon station to an anteater's snout.
- fred a. bernstein, "a clue to what's to come at ground zero," new york times october 26, 2003
posted October 26, 2003 in art, print. 2005200420022001