“It’s so quiet. Stunning architecture, but where is everybody?”

Our main reason for visiting Valencia was to see “starchitect” Santiago Calatrava’s City of Arts and Sciences, the reason we assumed many other tourists go to this Spanish city that’s as sensuous as its melodious name, Valencia. We wondered why so few people were there in late September, prime tourist season.

Born in Valencia, Calatrava (also an engineer, painter and sculptor) is world famous. We prairie people have seen his Peace Bridge in Calgary, just one of the many extraordinary bridges he’s designed around the world. In North America, he’s famous for the Oculus, the new transportation hub on the former site of New York’s World Trade Center at Ground Zero. Maybe you remember the roof he designed for the Athens Olympic stadium or saw his Turning Torso in Malmö or the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janiero.

Set in the dried-up river bed of the Turia in the backyard of the old city of Valencia, the City of Arts and Sciences is gargantuan—a complex of six buildings and promenades covering the equivalent of 1,350 tennis courts.

Here, Calatrava’s artistic structures—white in colour—appear airy and light as a swan’s wing. Architectural Digest describes his award-winning style as “distinctly neo-Futurist for its innovative use of materials and sleek, forward-thinking aesthetic.” Concrete and steel transformed into lissome curves.

What does the shape of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía remind you of: an eye and its lid? A nose and mouth?

The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, often called the Opera House, is used for other performing arts and major musical events

Pure white concrete and steel and coloured fragments of glazed tile unify the curvilinear structures throughout the City

The Umbracle, a gardened esplanade

The motto of the Príncipe Felipe Science Museum is "No touching is prohibited"

The longitudinal axis of the City's layout offers a counterpoint to the biomorphic design of the buildings

With the harp-like structure of the Assut D’or Bridge, Calatrava has realized architecture "that can give people sensations, like music"

The infinite potential of architecture

“You can see his training as a structural engineer,” said Magellan, an engineer who considered studying architecture. “And like Gaudi, he’s got a biomorphic style—that building looks like an eyeball.”

“You could call this the city of white elephants,” I said after we’d wandered around for a few hours. “What a pity so few people are here.”

At the far end, we came to the Àgora. It was open, free and where everybody in the City was gathered.

On display as part of Valencia’s Fashion Week were samples from up-and-coming designers. After buying myself an ecru linen-and-silk summer dress with a chunky zipper all the way down the back (for a ridiculously small amount), the designer, Amabel García, gave us tickets to a fashion show that was about to begin in another section of the Àgora.

Light waves in the Àgora, a metallic structure resembling a pre-historic skeleton about 88 metres long by 66 metres wide

On her website, Amabel García says her architectural designs are produced with "parametric modeling and digital fabrication"

“I’m liking this place more and more,” said Magellan as we watched sleek models parade the latest fashions down the small runway. He even caught some original footage of a model tripping on her dress! “That fashion show was like Calatrava’s architecture,” he said this week while working on the video, “all curves and tension.”

In the New Yorker, Rebecca Mead writes that “Calatrava’s engineering is like the interior tailoring on a couture gown: you can’t see how it works, but it looks gorgeous, and it costs a fortune to produce.” And maintain.

Talking to the locals, we learned that Valencians are paying high taxes to support the City of Arts and Sciences. And we learned I wasn’t the first person to call it a City of white elephants. Soon after our visit, it began to appear in news headlines, like this one from the Telegraph: “Valencia Sues Opera House Architect as White Elephants Rot.”

All the more reason to see one of Calatrava’s most ambitious projects. You’ll be helping the people in this gracious old city, which has so much to offer. We didn’t see the inside of any of the buildings except the Àgora—but you’ll be smarter. Like us, you may encounter pleasant surprises: a concert, a special exhibit, a fashion show. Go for the architecture alone—its impressive artistry awakens your senses to the brilliance of human imaginaton.

I read that when Calatrava was only 16 years old and considering becoming an artist, he went to Paris to check out l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

I visited Notre Dame at 11 in the morning and the sun was entering through the south rose window, it was so impressive. This is when architecture can be king and give people sensations, like music.

The curvilinear envelope at the back of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía

The Assut D’or Bridge, with traffic lanes in both directions as well as a pedestrian bridge in the centre, crosses the former River Turia

Eyeball-shaped, the Hemisfèric with its 100 metre-long ovoid roof encloses encloses an Imax Cinema, Planetarium and Laserium and was the first building in the City of Arts and Sciences to open to the public

Navigation

Architectural Digest has a good article on Calatrava’s designs worldwide.

You can find out more about The City of Arts & Science here.

Fast Company did an article on how Calatrava’s buildings marry engineering and biology.

Here are two pieces from the Telegraph, the first a good Q&A with Calatrava, the second about the rotting white elephants.