Bilbao 1 - Calatrava
Bilbao - 19 Jan 06
I fly into Bilbao and as the plane taxis into the landing gate I look out the window and realize the airport is by the Spanish Architect, Santiago Calatrava. Since I intend to combine my hiking of the Camino with a tour of new architecture in Spain this seems like a good omen.
I had admired Calatrava´s work when he was a ´bone man´ and a structural engineer. It seems that , with the help of a PR firm, he is trying to recast himself as a ´artist´. I saw images of his work in Tenerife and felt it was very bad - bad pseudo artist architecture. Martin Fuller gave an excellent summary of Calatrava´s work in the New York Review of Books, putting into words things I had be seeing in his architecture for awhile. I had appreciated Calatrava´s earlier work, his examination of animal skeletal structure and structural engineering had seemed a good source for invention. The airport was an early work and is quite nice. The concrete work hasn´t always aged well (I have real reservations about concrete as a material - more on that later), but the building breaks into a simple diagram of the functions, the linear airport landing gate with its articulated walkways in some ways seem a perfect canvas for Calatrava´s approach. Particularly good was the integration the builidngs into the landscape, the parking garage in particular. In fact some of the more compelling things I saw were in the parking garage - which in a way seems appropriate for this architect, maybe when he tries a little less hard the results are better.
In the city of Bilbao was one of his bridges, again an early work and its emphasis on structure as a form giver is very good. Architecturally it is really excellent, the way the bridge curves across the river with the elipsoidal ´structural´ arch counterbalancing the pedestrain way and the cable stays creating a inviting space for passage are all very good. It seems less structurally ´honest´than I at first thought. The detailling 
shows a large steel rod elegantly balanced on one point on a concrete pier at each end of the bridge. A closer look at the detail reveals a large piece of steel connected to the rod to prevent rotation. While a quick view of the bridge would seem to indicate it is delcately balanced on these two points - I´m not sure that is true, it seems very off balance and these concrete counter arms are very necessary to preventing the bridge from tipping, which made me wonder if the curved arch above was really doing any work at all, the cable stays seems quite loose and the other strcuture in the bridge seems sufficient for the loads of pedestrian loads. In a way, I feel the architectural expression is so successful, I don´t mind the structural inconsistacies. Still it made me wonder about the kind of short cuts that Calatrava will take in his work.
I fly into Bilbao and as the plane taxis into the landing gate I look out the window and realize the airport is by the Spanish Architect, Santiago Calatrava. Since I intend to combine my hiking of the Camino with a tour of new architecture in Spain this seems like a good omen.
I had admired Calatrava´s work when he was a ´bone man´ and a structural engineer. It seems that , with the help of a PR firm, he is trying to recast himself as a ´artist´. I saw images of his work in Tenerife and felt it was very bad - bad pseudo artist architecture. Martin Fuller gave an excellent summary of Calatrava´s work in the New York Review of Books, putting into words things I had be seeing in his architecture for awhile. I had appreciated Calatrava´s earlier work, his examination of animal skeletal structure and structural engineering had seemed a good source for invention. The airport was an early work and is quite nice. The concrete work hasn´t always aged well (I have real reservations about concrete as a material - more on that later), but the building breaks into a simple diagram of the functions, the linear airport landing gate with its articulated walkways in some ways seem a perfect canvas for Calatrava´s approach. Particularly good was the integration the builidngs into the landscape, the parking garage in particular. In fact some of the more compelling things I saw were in the parking garage - which in a way seems appropriate for this architect, maybe when he tries a little less hard the results are better.
In the city of Bilbao was one of his bridges, again an early work and its emphasis on structure as a form giver is very good. Architecturally it is really excellent, the way the bridge curves across the river with the elipsoidal ´structural´ arch counterbalancing the pedestrain way and the cable stays creating a inviting space for passage are all very good. It seems less structurally ´honest´than I at first thought. The detailling 
shows a large steel rod elegantly balanced on one point on a concrete pier at each end of the bridge. A closer look at the detail reveals a large piece of steel connected to the rod to prevent rotation. While a quick view of the bridge would seem to indicate it is delcately balanced on these two points - I´m not sure that is true, it seems very off balance and these concrete counter arms are very necessary to preventing the bridge from tipping, which made me wonder if the curved arch above was really doing any work at all, the cable stays seems quite loose and the other strcuture in the bridge seems sufficient for the loads of pedestrian loads. In a way, I feel the architectural expression is so successful, I don´t mind the structural inconsistacies. Still it made me wonder about the kind of short cuts that Calatrava will take in his work.
posted by gg at 9:00 AM
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