Santiago Calatrava's Dynamic Urbanism [Portfolio] - eScholarship

P O R T F O L I O Santiago Calatrava's Dynamic Urbanism Donlyn Lyndon Santiago Calatrava is best known, perhaps, for the sheer vigor of his de- Platform, promenade and pergola of Zurich, Switzerland railroad station. signs — shapes that seem to fuse architecture, engineering and art. Embed- Photos © Paolo Rosselli. Drawings courtesy Calatrava Vails S.A, A good design concept is not a big, simple idea in isolation; it is an idea ded within many of his projects, as well, is a sensitive, dynamic urbanism. that contains a large amount of information, often conflicting informa- tion. Calatrava's projects are elegant but they are not simple; they mobi- lize a great deal of information and hold together places that are extreme- ly complex. They make good places, not just good buildings or good bridges. It is the project and its surroundings that should become better through good design, not just the project. Every project, especially every public project, should have multiple pur- poses. A good project might be conceived with several purposes, or it may start out with a single purpose and then become more complex. T h e viaduct connecting the two main spans of Seville's Alamillo bridge is a sin- gular example of this — beneath it Calatrava created a beautiful space that PLACES