Calatrava and the spectacle of architecture

The image impacts, it is one of the central structures for the upcoming Expo Dubai 2020: The United Arab Emirates Pavilion, designed by Santiago Calatrava. But not all that shines is gold, although in Dubai this claim could be true.

 

An impressive media deployment, the cult of power and money, frame the series of images with which this work is presented pharaonic. The most international Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava, has always been involved in controversy, both for the spectacularity of its characteristic designs, and for the exorbitant costs they represent.

In her native country no longer arouses the same sympathy of a decade ago when her countrymen boasted of having a genius among their ranks. His name is in the sights of various judicial proceedings in various countries where problems are denounced in his works and the economic viability is questioned. One speaks in general, of a history of heartbreak.

And although there have been many criticisms of their architectural work, praise is also abundant. "This is because for nearly three or four decades, in Spain and in other countries, architecture has become a spectacle architecture, a fashion architecture," says Spanish professor and architect Mariano Vázquez spy.

This time the pavilion will materialize a fortunate coincidence, an expensive author project and a client with an excessive economic well-being, capable of absorbing the cost of any work. The result is an architecture that surpasses any limit plotted, the budget, the luxury, the form, the technology.

It is worth mentioning that the United Arab Emirates selected the design of Calatrava from nine other finalist projects for being the one that most remembered the tradition and the future of this nation, and the one that represented in a better way the theme of the exhibition "Connecting the Minds, creating the future. "

At the opening ceremony of Expo 2020 the chairman of the Dubai High Committee HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum commented that the design "will evoke the pioneering spirit and power of relations that transformed the Emirates from a set of small Communities of the desert, to a point of global connection. The UAE pavilion will become a cornerstone and also lead to a continuity plan that reflects our hopes and ambitions in the years ahead. "

Built by Arabtec Construction, it will be ready by the end of 2019.

Certainly an ambitious project that will give a lot to talk about.