Venice Is Holding Calatrava Responsible for His Poor Design. Will Dallas?
Remember how Dallas built two fake suspension bridges on either side of I-30 which were supposed to allow pedestrians and bicyclists to cross the Trinity River, except the construction of the Santiago Calatrava-designed bridges was so dangerous they never opened? Yeah. Hard to forget that one.
Well, the bridges are still not open, but this story about another Santiago Calatrava-designed bridge reminded me of Dallas’ saga. Venice is fining Calatrava for “macroscopic negligence” over a bridge he designed that crosses the Italian city’s Grand Canal. The glass-and-steel bridge near the tourist mecca’s main train station supposedly can’t withstand the intense daily traffic. A court in Rome ruled that the architect failed to account for the huge number of tourists that cross the bridge every day. “This is negligent, the court said, because it is something ‘everyone understands’ about the floating city,” Artnet reports.
The story reminded me of Dallas’ Calatrava soap opera because, well, this kind of thing follows Calatrava around the globe. His sleek designs are notoriously high maintenance, over budget, and prone to failure. Here’s a short list of his debacles:
• The Valencia city council sued Calatrava over his Palau De Les Arts, an opera house in the city that had to be closed because of a crumbling roof (and also included 150 seats with obstructed views).
• The World Trade Center Transportation Hub was supposed to cost New York $2 billion, but the final price tag was closer to $4 billion, and it came complete with a leaky roof (not to mention its abhorrently kitschy design)
• A bridge he constructed in Bilbao became known as the “wipeout bridge” because rain turns it into a slippery ice • rink that takes out pedestrians.
• Calatrava’s science museum in Valencia was constructed without fire escapes or elevators.
• Calatrava-designed an airport, also in Bilbao, but forgot to build an arrivals lounge, which forced the city to add a makeshift glass box to handle incoming traffic.
• A Calatrava winery featured one of the architects now trademark leaky roofs.
• A conference center in Oviedo collapsed during construction, and a court subsequently forced the architect to pay €2.9 million in damages.
Read more: https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2019/08/venice-is-holding-calatrava-responsible-for-his-poor-design-will-dallas/
The Margaret McDermott Bridge, which still has not opened to pedestrians nearly four years after its completion.
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