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Santiago Calatrava’s anatomical structures, biomorphims:
In his work you will find bridges that are true constructive works of art; skeletons derived clearly from the observation of the nature; alive, dynamic structures, that are folded by means of modern mechanisms. The inspiration of natural form has led to works such as the Toronto BCE place gallery, the railway station at Lisbon in Portugal and at the airport of Lyon, in France, to name but a few.
The bony-shaped members follow effortlessly the force action, and their sizes respond to the stress flow, thereby bringing the structure alive like an organism. The interaction of the elements expresses a natural equilibrium.
Calatrava has explored the ways in which structures accommodate movement. Movement was the basis of his Ph.D. thesis "On the foldability of frames" at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich. In this work, he examined structures that could be packed and unpacked by means of an ingenious system of compact movable components.
Highly articulated structures abound in Calatrava’s work which, like organisms, possess rounded corners and avoid abrupt changes in geoemtry. His structures reflect varying bending moments and his columns are broader in their middle, and taper gradually towards both ends. Also frequent in his work is the use of highly differentiated elements, composed of non-uniform materials, where each material, again like the members of a organisms, assumes the task it can best perform. Typical in Calatrava’s work is theuse of structural members to direct force actions down to earth by the shortest path.
“ Simple observation has guided all my work. The metamorphosis of form is optimally solved in animals and plants, with their capacity to grow and to move. Movement has been a source of inspiration to me - the wind moves, the trees move, the sun moves. Foldability and mobility are aspects that interest me more every day. I dedicated myself to the study of living forms.”
Santiago Calatrava
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Toronto BCE place gallery Lisbon railway station
Lusitania
bridge deck sketch, Merida, Spain.
Foldable Structures in Nature
The illustration above shows the bone structure in a bat's wing, a bird's wing and a human arm. All of them are foldable anatomical light structures. The bird's wing has a fairly rigid bone structure, and the main flying muscles move the bones at the point where the wing connects to the body. A bat has a much more flexible wing structure.
Bauschaenzli restaurant, Zurich. Plan with roof structure folded and unfolded
Lyon airport
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