Posted Aug 5, 2010, 8:29 PM
|
 |
Robotic Construction
|
|
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 3,833
|
|
After interviewing Santiago Calatrava about the DIA expansion, Michael Paglia all week preparing this article published in today's Denver Westword magazine:
Quote:
Taking off: Santiago Calatrava has spectacular designs on DIA
By Michael Paglia
Thursday, Aug 5 2010
Denver made international architecture news last week when Spanish-born Santiago Calatrava came to town to unveil his designs for the expansion of Denver International Airport. An engineer and an architect, Calatrava gained fame — and respect — with his designs of bridges, transportation stations and buildings. There was so much public interest in Calatrava's lecture, which took place the night before the unveiling in the Denver Art Museum's Sharp Auditorium, that attendance was far beyond the Sharp's capacity, and hundreds of people were turned away at the door.
Calatrava's light-rail station complex with the Jeppesen Terminal in the background.
See more artist renderings by Santiago Calatrava on Westword's new Show and Tell blog, go to http://bit.ly/DIAchanges. For a link to Michael Paglia's first-ever Westword column, "Flying Blind: The Art at DIA Is Mostly DOA,"
Calatrava's ideas for Denver are spectacular...
...First, as travelers approach the airport either by light rail or in cars or buses on Peña Boulevard, they'll come across the bridge. Calatrava proposes a graceful arcing structure with angled suspension cables that will hold up the railbed below. The arch and the footings on either side of the boulevard will be finished in white, a color cue taken from the shade of the Jeppesen tents. For Calatrava, the arched shape represents a gateway, and he sees it as working symbolically for travelers heading both ways. When they are going east toward the terminal, the bridge will function as a symbolic gateway to the airport; when they're going west toward the city, it will welcome visitors to Denver.
Next up is the stunningly beautiful station at the south end of the existing complex. The tracks and platforms are covered at the station's train entrance by a broad and shallow arch that's cantilevered and appears to float over the trains. The leading edge of the arch is cut away at the sides so that the semi-circular form follows a diagonal line like a canopy — which is what it is. The platforms extend out beyond the arched canopy, with the whole station set in a depression in the land that allows the top of the roof vault to come to a level even with the ground on which the Jeppesen, behind it, sits.
Beyond the station is the convention-center portion of the complex, marked by a vertical glass wall. Above and behind that is the hotel, with its entrance marked by another cantilevered canopy serving as a porte cochere for auto traffic. This second canopy mirrors the shape of the one at the station below it. The form of the hotel is quite unusual since the center has been cut away, and the opening is flanked by a pair of seven-story mid-rise blocks. This theatrical feature was clearly generated by both the function of the airport and the power and value of the Jeppesen, which is an internationally recognized symbol of the city. The cut-away allows the blocks to suggest the shape of wings and also allows the distinctive tent structure to be seen through the gap when viewed from the south.
Heading toward the Jeppesen, a continuation of the arched canopy in the front of the hotel shelters an open-air sky plaza in the back. The rounded edge of the canopy slips in just below the bottom of the tent forms. This careful connection between the old and the new is remarkable because Calatrava has created his own distinctive design while being very sensitive to the Jeppesen...
...Like the bridge, all of these features will be colored white. Calatrava explains that he could have done his elements in a complementary shade, mentioning gray and blue, but he felt that the relationship between the browns and beiges of the surrounding prairie and the white used for the tents was perfect, and he wanted to replicate that.
"I am not competing with the tents," he told me. "Our building is enframing the tents, so our architecture is working like a frame on a picture. The tents become a thema; the tents are also exalted by our buildings. The tents are working in tension — they are tensile structures — while the arcs are compressive. They are opposites, and together they become a promenade architecturale."
See more artist renderings by Santiago Calatrava on Westword's new Show and Tell blog, go to http://bit.ly/DIAchanges. For a link to Michael Paglia's first-ever Westword column, "Flying Blind: The Art at DIA Is Mostly DOA,"
In other words, the tent forms soar into the air while the station and hotel complex push down toward the ground, thus creating a dialogue with one another...
Read the full, article here
|
__________________
Automation Is Still the Future
|
Prev
Linear Mode
