Educational Media Reviews Online

Santiago Calatrava mixes elements of sculpture and engineering to make architecture. This short film brings home that message through commentary by two Spanish professors of architecture and the technical director of an engineering firm that worked on several Calatrava projects. Three themes are repeated throughout the film. Calatrava does not follow trends, and so, he is underappreciated by the architecture establishment. He is not a spaces architect, being primarily interested in the external aesthetics of his structures. Finally, the geometric complexity of his work requires absolute precision in its execution.

The film offers a fairly complete introduction to Calatrava’s background and influences. Possibly the most interesting portions of the film are those about the construction requirements of a Calatrava project. With a focus on the train stations built in Liege, Belgium and Lisbon, Portugal, we learn about the many decisions that must be made by the engineers. An interesting comment by one of the professors is that Calatrava has not changed the history of architecture at all, but, particularly with the design of his bridges, he has changed the way we look at civil engineers.

The visual and audio quality of this film is good. The projects are shown in both still and live shots, and the evolution of project design is shown through early sketches and developed drawings. Unfortunately, having to read subtitles for this Spanish language film makes it difficult to take in the images. This is not a detailed look at any of Calatrava’s work, and we don’t get a feel for his creative process. A much better film for that is the 1999 release, Santiago Calatrava’s Travels, also reviewed on EMRO. However, this film does provide an interesting critique of Calatrava’s career and would be useful in architecture classes studying his work. Recommended for academic libraries supporting an architecture program.