love his work, I think you are aesthetically challenged. And this is the first time i've heard any kind of criticism of Calaltrava's work

first time? i've heard many people talk ill of his work. he is an engineer wanting to be an architect. i personally don't like his work. the atlanta symphony hall is scary.

i love his engineering acumen and his bridges, that's what he is good at and should stick to. his architecture seems to hedge towards very un-useful land bridges to nowhere. he is a nice guy though, so, you know, at least he's got that going for him, which is nice.

wow, this is the first time I've heard anyone say that don't like Calatrava! Even my mother likes his work!!

The purity of form in his work is superb. A personal fav.

I love his work.

That said, his building down the street from my house looks beautiful, but has its share of problems. This has much to do with programming and his tendency to "push the envelope" in terms of engineering.

The building I am referring to is his Quadracci Pavilion in Milwaukee - the museum that has motorized "wings" that open and close each day.

I have spoken to the building's maintenance engineer, and it is a cost burden because it costs so much to run. As you walk around the exterior of the building, stress fractures are present all over the concrete, and the white color will require a great deal of maintenance as the building ages.

The fundamental problem is that the space itself is really bad for a museum. The primarily glass envelope is not good for exhibits, and the circulation is poor. Where Calatrava's addition meets Kahn's older part of the museum looks like a train wreck. I think it was also something like 5 times over its budget.

I really do like his work and think this is a beautiful sculptural building; however, as I have pointed out, it has its share of flaws.

his work is beautiful as sculpture....programatticaly they dont work that well

I've never been too fond of his buildings. Guess I'm in the camp that doesn't want an engineer pushing his way into my business. Then again I really like that new bridge Foster did in France. Guess the door swings both ways nowdays.

The architecture I really hate is Gaudi. Yuck! I have NEVER met anyone who didn't think he was great. The only thing I find great about that guy is the way he died. All architects should go in some dramatic fashion.

Tim - what you described is not good architecture whether or not it is "beautiful sculpture". Isn't this how architects get a bad rap for being arrogant and selfish?

I think all of Calatrava's buildings are like bridges wrapped around space...

I'm in the same boat as o+...

love his bridges/engineering, not a fan of his buildings.

Calatrava blows!!!!!!!, plain and simple!

end of discussion.

"it is through criticism and even disparagement that we find our true creative genius."

How so?

i saw him speak recently, and quite unfortunately his work ALL LOOKS THE SAME. he showed bridges in spain, in france, in america, all over, and they all loook the same, shunning the particularities of site and place in favor of his comfort zone. remember the bilbao after effect of ghery's work??? same thing with this guy...

and now, just when i thought he'd broken out of the box by designing an elegant turning torso tower in malmo, sweden, he comes back and stamps the same tower in manhatten!!!!! i think he's getting way too comfortable with himself and his own aesthetic...

do us all a favor and get over yourself santiago!!!!!

in the begining i saw much potential - now it's all spectacle.
imo - needs to regroup and find the engineer in himself again.

so easy to say from the sidelines, but the recent work is not
inspiring to me - but the spectacle is awesome.

without commenting on his work in general, the atlanta project on first blush looks incredibly ostentatious. his scheme is relying on a well defined background to assert it's presence but in reality it is an object building amongst other, much taller, much messier, much less pristine objects. and i'm not sure how the relationship will work. 14th street, which runs parallel with the building, is a semi-major arterial street that isn't particularly pedestrian friendly, but his scheme relies on that aspect of approach for it's 'wowness'. he's not showing the opposite end of where that 'prow' directs your visual attention - it's to the service entrance side of a new high rise office tower.

granted he had a difficult site to work with and a client that wanted an object. but i'm going to have to see more before i'm convinced...

I'm not terribly interested in Calatrava. His work doesnt have any depth in terms of cultural or contextual location. You can pick one up in Buenos Aires and slap it down in Copenhagen and it would'nt look out of place.

For me, he's a structural expressionist, which has some merit I suppose, but what he does is not architecture. Then again, he's an engineer so what do you expect.

I don't reckon he 'sucks' but I'm with moda... the form (non-plural intentional) is getting a bit tired... refer Tenerife Opera House, Valencia Opera House... and also his website used to be wicked now it's bland...

Actually, I'm pretty over Libeskind as well. The man has turned his architecture into a brand.

I really like some of his bridges, like the pedestrian bridge in Bilbao. But I've got to say the Atlanta Sumphony Center is an utter abomination. Its not beautiful as sculpture, architecture, or anything else. I just watched the animation, hoping that it might grow on me. Nope. Its like a collage of his previous buildings: the overarching beak from the Tenerife Opera House(The part that he described on Charlie Rose as a 'wave'...er, not sure what the same 'wave' has to do with atlanta?) and the moving 'wings' from Milwaukee.

Most of his work is elegant and beautiful; the ASC is neither.

After attending the Design Unveiling tonight, where Santiago Calatrava was present, I am dissappointed in Calatrava's design integrity. I was really excited about hearing Calatrava speak about this design and the best he could offer was watercoloring to the conductor of the ASO playing the piano. Although residents of Georgia and Atlanta are thoroughly excited about this "journey", as the phases are described, the design seemingly does not fit the scale or the culture of the city. Clearly this building is misplaced, out-of-scale. sculpture.

http://www.atlantasymphonycenter.org/

looks like calatrava's got some sort of kit-of-parts for his projects....moving wings...sweeping arcs....all done before by him....i guess he just picks out elements ffrom former projects and puts them together for new ones...

so not cool !!

Strawbeary,
I agree and disagree. It is interesting architecture that I would put into the category of artistic/experimental rather than purposeful. There are very few people here in Milwaukee that don't like the building.

Did it do what it was supposed to do? Yes and no.

No, in terms of the usability of its floor space as a museum. A Wal-Mart would do a better job of providing useful exhibit space. Does anyone want a Wal-Mart as a museum? Probably not.


Yes, in terms of drawing people in, breathing new life into a museum which previously had been waning in popularity. It draws a crowd-- a huge crowd. People who wouldn't otherwise visit Milwaukee come here to see it. To step foot within the atrium is almost a divine experience, especially when the wings are down.

Was Calatrava reckless/arrogant/selfish in designing this building? Yes, I believe so. As I recall the original budget was $25 million. The final price ended up being closer to $140 million. The museum was willing to pony up; they could have cut him off had they wanted.

Part of the reason for the huge budget over-run was carelessness. Calatrava provided the local partnering architect with nice renderings, watercolors, etc, and the local guy in turn generated drawings to actually make it work. Calatrava visited once a month or so, and instructed the local architect to demolish numerous rooms & rebuild because it wasn't exactly as he envisioned. I was told by a good source that hadn't it been for all the re-do's, the building should have cost somewhere around $85 million.

The funny thing that is happening all over Milwaukee is with the museum's popularity, the department of public works is suddenly erecting all kinds of white vehicular and pedestrian bridges with the same hand-rail as Calatrava used. Lots of other poorly designed "moderne" white buildings are popping up all over the city too. It's getting old.

It's a good thing that Calatrava didn't get the commission on a condominium high rise downtown like he proposed (some spiral-esque thing).... by now we would have 10 clones.

If his work were sculpture it would be some tacky kenetic thing you buy in the Sharper Image and put on your desk to play with while talking on the phone.

The problem with sculpture makign architects is that sculputres haven't been making "pure forms" for like 80 years now and none of that shit would fly as art for a second.

yeah, yeah....

aaaaaaargh! what is that thing there! aargh! take it down, pleaseeeee!
one hit wonder repeated to the maximum,a great engineer, but so (and even more) is cecil balmond, and his output hasn't been crippled by the same kind of "aesthetical consistency".

where did that last expression come out of, i don't know.

cecil balmond has built something???

Anyhow glad to see I'm not alone - and for the record I do like his bridges - he's branded them, to the point where even Foster seems to want to copy them, but that's ok (not)

He needs to stop getting building projects - they just don't work, they look awful, and gives this missappropriate opinion of architects as "object makers"

I very much dislike Calatrava's work myslelf...

Ironic that this post is going on at the same time that Calatrave is unveiling his design for Atlanta's Symphony Hall. Here's the 'latest and greatest'

<img src="http://www.trey.bravehost.com/images/aso.jpg">

My opinions are very similar to the skeptics on here. Although coming from a town [Atlanta] where we arent really tripping on architecture, I'm interested to see the affect this could have on the future of the city.

Also, I would like to reply to the Gaudi comment posted by 'A'. I think I shared your opinion until I visited his work. The fact the Gaudi is a marketing tool for Barcelona is unappealing. The fact the Gaudi exists like no other architect - largely a public phenomenon taken from academia's appreciation and readapted to fit a type of tourism [architectural or not] - also bothers me. But, if you can forget this for a second a judge his work for what it was, and not what it has become then I find it truly amazing. Only a couple weeks ago, I visited several of his buildings [mainly b/c I felt I had to] and was blown away by the creativity and originality that existed within his work. It's unrivaled.

This is not to say that I am now a Gaudi disciple. He applied his interests quite differently than I hope to, however I simply respect what he has done, and regret what has happened to his reputation.

Calatrava should have remained a bridge designer. He does seem like a genuinely nice guy though.

Atlanta had a chance to have him design a bridge but blew it.
I attended the design unveiling last night in Atlanta. It was quite painful to hear the politicians and CEOs speak in terms of Architecture. It will be a huge struggle for Atlanta to achieve this building without compromise. After all is said and done though, it will be the wrong building.

Also, the tagline "a postcard for Georgia" makes me puke.

all we desire as a culture is our 'kodak' moments..........

Does anyone here like the design for Atlanta specifically?

I think Guadi is amazing as well.

I don't know about that Frank Gehry dood though. Never did like him. Talk about getting old and putting the same thing on different sites around the globe - he is the champ of that as far as I'm concerned.

Funny how my tastes change, I used to loathe Richard Meier, now I think he's alright. Could be that I'm doing a museum in precast right about now...

The farther I get into practice, the more I question this "good architecture" ideal I have. I think my firm does good architecture because we operate within the paramaters given and produce buildings that our clients like and can afford and the public. It may not be "great", but it certainly is "good" architecture.
We all can design something way crazy-cool at 4 times the budget and then have someone else do the CDs and the CA and I don't know that it takes that much talent. Ego and charisma and fame - yes. Talent - not as much as they want you think.

"Postcard for Georgia" - that's marketing genius for ya! ha ha! That's why those marketing peeps get paid so well! Wait , that doesn't make any sense...

continued...Forgot my 2 cents on Calatrava. Interesting, I like it. There was a kid in my school who studied him closely. His work always stood out and got good reviews.

OOPS sentence in above was cut off after "public"- I was going to state how the public is not offended or something by our designs. meaning it doesn't bother them and they generally don't notice and they probably don't care. However if we did poor architecture, they would notice and that would not be good.

I like the Atlanta design specifically.

ah no, gaudi was a true design god, (though a religious mental case probably)
cal:
stress fractures are present all over the concrete,

ie, poor engineering.

de coster-

i thought i just read something about him getting a permit in NYC for the condo high rise? very similar design to the housing project in Malmo, Sweden.
can anyone verify??

like



or

caltrava, gehry, liebeskind... it's like in music: they had a good song and all the next one are kind of the same/ variations on one theme. got stuck!
it's all about brand! boooooooring!
gaudi is right in between 'sweet' and 'ok, whatever' for me.

You’re giving the man a hard time. For someone who started with bridges and is still learning the arts there’s plenty worse, even if he’s quite boisterous in his architecture (issues of context and stylisation).

This building is as function, sculpture and occasion. One of his best - Auditorio de Tenerife, Santa Cruz



more images

what's with those black bollards just sticking up there?

and speaking of musical parallels, yeah musicians peak, then fade. and most of their work, even at their peak, is churn or dud.

just listening 'i will survive' by gloria gaynor... are these architects listening to this song a lot? certainly looks like...

This is a funny post. I think we are taught to criticize a little too much. There is never a good thread where everyone, more or less, agrees on a new, great building.

Personally, I like architecture as sculpture. It's much harder to pull off something that is sculpture and building, than just to create a building.

Is Frank Gehry and Calatrava and others the Britney and Jessica of architecture?
Meaning, are they marketed as better than they are? And each new piece is "great" just because its from them? And then we just get tired of them and look to the next.
If a newbie like me tried to propose something like that, I'd get exported to never-neverland.
That's why I value integrity, honesty, reliability and consistancy over the bubble-gum architecture.

you muppets, it’s a warehouse for goodness sake.

You probably churn out shit like this given half the chance

I think the warehouse is awesome.

If the "warehouse" is the top picture that BOTS posted I mean.

i agree trace. i think when the sculpture of the building start to compromise the function of the building that when i have a problem. it seems this is a common complaint amongst people who have visited his buildings.

e - 'this is a common complaint amongst people who have visited his buildings.'

that will be the tourists or the critics? What about the people who use the buildings, these people are the true arbiters of function.

i like the distorted "fisheye" structure of the second warehouse. but parking is probably too exciting.

the 'wave' roof of the c warehouse. a non compound curve that "appears" complex.

retro. those were never common.




http://www.ketchum.org/shellpix.html