Santiago Calatrava

Like Grand Central Station, which is a marvelous building, the design and engineering of the Oculus will endure for many generations to come.

You have to live with the necessities of other people.

In my opinion, as an engineer, a bridge is the most difficult thing you can do. You are not working in the direction of gravity but against it - so the problem opposes the solution.

A first building is like a first novel, it is always autobiographical.

I always considered the role of teaching to be very noble and relevant.

For the first project I did in North America, I was asked as an artist, not as an architect, to collaborate on a big development in the heart of Toronto. I was working with other artists and was in charge of giving form to a street, and I proposed a galleria.

The first significant work I did was a railway station in Zurich called Stadelhofen.

Some have tried to use my work for politics, using inaccurate or out-of-context information that, repeated enough, becomes truth to some even though it is not.

Many of the architects I admire have given the best of themselves as they mature. I'm hoping to do the same.

I understand and accept criticisms of my work, provided they are done with professional criteria and arguments.

The reality is that throughout my career I've tackled projects in Spain that I'm proud of.

As an architect, you do not have control of who will build the building and who will have the capability.

My goal is always to create something exceptional that enhances cities and enriches the lives of the people who live and work in them.

For people of the younger generation, the 21st century has started for them with a positive sign that Valencia is and will continue to be a very modern city.

The Freedom Tower has a cost overrun. A significant cost overrun.

There is so much vulgarity in the everyday, that when somebody has the pretension to do something extraordinary for the community, then you have to suffer.

A railway station is something that can generate a city.

Bridges join places that were separated. They are built for the sake of progress and for the average citizen. They even have a religious dimension. Even the word 'religious' comes from the Latin, meaning 'creating a link.'

New York is not a place that lets you be indifferent. New York is this kind of place that, wherever you go, wherever you move, you are always confronted by your own time.

Something that's very important is to preserve the sense of surprise, the sense of discovery. The eye of the person you are talking to, your shadow on the ground. It's important not to get suffocated by all the things in life and lose that sense of surprise.