Reviews
Contenido
Las obras de Calatrava han sido criticadas, fundamentalmente por cuatro motivos:.
Bilbao
Calatrava's work in Bilbao has been criticized as impractical: the Bilbao airport lacks optimal facilities for travelers, with an open waiting room in a very rainy city[30] and on the Zubizuri bridge the glass tiles break easily (in 10 years 600 of them had to be replaced, at a cost to the City Council of 300,000 euros)[31] and they are slippery when it rains,[32] which is why several pedestrians have slipped on it over the years.[31] In 2007, Calatrava sued the Bilbao city council[33] for allowing a pedestrian walkway by Arata Isozaki to be built and linked to the bridge. In the first instance, the complaint filed against the Bilbao City Council for infringement of intellectual property in the ZubiZuri bridge was dismissed on the understanding that, although its work has been altered, the public interest prevails over copyright.[34] However, after an appeal, in March 2009 the Provincial Court of Vizcaya rectified the criteria of the Commercial Magistrate of Bilbao and ruled in favor of the plaintiff, condemning the council to pay €30,000 to the architect as compensation.[35] This amount was donated.[36] The Irish city of Dublin also has a bridge with these same characteristics, the James Joyce Bridge, of which no type of incident is known.
Venice
Calatrava, in 1996, was chosen for the construction of a bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice. Since the project was approved numerous structural changes have been made due to the mechanical instability of the structure and the excessive weight of the bridge,[37] which could cause the canal banks to collapse. The work was stopped briefly shortly after beginning. In ten years the project has been inspected by more than eight different consulting firms and the cost of the project has increased more than three times the original budget;[38] in 2008 the bridge was completed and the mayor decided not to celebrate the inauguration due to the controversy generated during construction.[39].
Oviedo
Another controversy arose over the Princess Letizia Congress Palace built in Oviedo, since it had a mobile device as a visor that, however, could not be raised due to problems in its hydraulic mechanism.[40] This building consists of a conference palace, a hotel, a shopping center and the Ministry of Health of the Principality of Asturias. This mobile device has been successfully implemented in other projects of the architect in Milwaukee and in the Faculty of Innovation, Science and Technology of the Florida Polytechnic University"), which has recently been awarded Project of the Year, in the awards of the specialized magazine ENR.[41].
Also in Oviedo, three 130-meter-high, 39-story leaning towers were planned at the end of 2007 at the entrance to the city from the north, known as Calatrava's 'triplets', although the city's mayor later discarded the project for not achieving the "necessary political or social consensus."[42]
In the media
The most common and widespread criticism of Calatrava's work was collected by the American newspaper The New York Times in 2009. In its pages, it was stated that Calatrava's buildings present "a worrying incongruity between the extravagance of its architecture and the limited purpose it serves", in reference to the station that Calatrava has designed for ground zero in New York.[43][44] without hardly adapting to the environment in which he builds, nor in relation to the weather, nor in relation to the natural landscape or architectural environment in which the new construction will be framed. Likewise, the Tenerife auditorium has been criticized for not being accessible for the physically disabled.[45] In October 2014, Santiago Calatrava responded to many of the criticisms made in an interview published by El País,[46] in which he stated that he was being the subject of a discredit campaign for electoral purposes. Furthermore, he attributed the criticism received to failures in the execution of the works and inadequate maintenance of the buildings and bridges he created.
Judicial proceedings
On August 9, 2006, the eaves of the Oviedo Congress Palace collapsed. As a result, the insurance company Allianz filed a lawsuit against Calatrava and his team. The Superior Court of Justice of Asturias sentenced the defendants to pay 3,510,000 euros because it considered them responsible for a failure in the shoring system, which was not correctly calculated.[47] After filing an appeal, in February 2014 he was sentenced again by the Provincial Court of Oviedo, with an amount to be paid on this occasion of 2,960,000 euros.[48]
In 2012, the Italian Court of Auditors claimed 3.4 million euros from Santiago Calatrava and those responsible for the project of the fourth bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice for presenting "chronic pathologies" as a result of a defective design of the work.[49] Finally, the Italian Court of Auditors dismissed the accusation against Calatrava, considering that there were no responsibilities for the delays and cost of the work.[50].
In 2013, the Valencian Government also plans to take legal action for the landslides that occurred in December of the same year in part of the ceramic covering of the Reina Sofía Palace of Arts. According to El País, the 'trencadís' of the Palace of Arts fell due to the misuse of the adhesive.[51] Finally, by a friendly agreement, the architect and the construction joint venture paid for the necessary repairs[52] without taking legal action.[53].
In April 2013, Bodegas Ysios sues Calatrava and asks for 2 million to fix the roof of a winery that the architect designed, which has leaks and humidity.[54].