The first two sections of Santiago Calatrava’s Trinity River Bridge arrived in Dallas on August 20. Ordinarily this would have been cause for celebration, a sign that the project was on track and under control. But in this case it may be just one more round in a 10-year dog fight involving the city, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Federal Highway Administration over where or whether the vehicular bridge can be built.
Santiago Calatrava’s design for a transit hub at the World Trade Center site in Manhattan has been scaled back. On July 1, shortly after revealing that virtually all of the construction projects at Ground Zero were behind schedule and over budget, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced it was cutting out a signature element of Calatrava’s elliptical-shaped building: a hydraulic system that would allow its ribbed steel wings to open and close.
Construction of Santiago Calatrava’s elegant, lyre-shaped suspension bridge at the entrance to Jerusalem is due to be finished at the end of May, despite a history of opposition from residents, environmental groups, and others—and an apparent lack of purpose in the short term.
A civil judge in Bilbao, Spain, has ruled against Santiago Calatrava in his suit challenging Arata Isozaki’s addition to his 1997 footbridge over the Nervión River. The addition was built without Calatrava’s knowledge and opened last February.
Aspiring to give Valencia, Spain’s third-largest city, cultural clout and a tourist magnet rivaling Frank Gehry’s museum in Bilbao, the regional government set out to develop an 86.5-acre site on a dry riverbed, midway between Valencia’s old section and its coastal district.
The Chicago Planning Commission unanimously approved the fourth, and perhaps final, iteration of Santiago Calatrava’s Chicago Spire yesterday afternoon. Designed for a 2.2-acre lakefront site—although its footprint will occupy barely half that amount—the seven-sided glass tower tapers and twists to point 2,000 feet above a public plaza below, making it the tallest building in North America.
With works such as the Alamillo Bridge in Seville, Spain and the footbridge over the River Nervión in Bilbao, Santiago Calatrava has established himself as the most innovative and influential bridge designer of our time.
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