Santiago Calatrava

Santiago Calatrava Valls (born 28 July 1951) is a Spanish neofuturistic architect, structural engineer, sculptor and painter. He has offices in New York City, Doha, and Zürich.

Early life and education

Calatrava was born in Benimàmet, an old municipality now integrated as an urban part of Valencia, Spain. His mother's family were of Jewish heritage, but had nominally converted during the Spanish Inquisition of the fifteenth century. "His Calatrava surname was an old aristocratic one from medieval times, and was once associated with an order of knights in Spain. Both sides of his family were involved in the agricultural export business. Members of his father's family suffered during the turmoil of the 1930s, when a bloody civil war resulted in a military dictatorship, and as a young man Calatrava was eager to leave behind the repressive atmosphere that endured."

He has received a degree in architecture at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. There he completed independent projects with fellow students, publishing two books on the vernacular architecture of Valencia and Ibiza. In 1975 he enrolled in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland, for a second degree in civil engineering. In 1981, after receiving his doctorate in civil engineering for his thesis, "On the Foldability of Space Frames", he started his architecture and engineering practice.