Research On The Dynamic Characteristic Of Works For Santiago Calatrava

Nowadays, Santiago Calatrava is one of those who are versatile genius in pluralistic and individual architecture field. That's because his works unify the essence of science and art, and his works break the traditional division of specialties appearing since Industrial Revolution while complying with the trend of times. Calatrava is an architect, structure engineer and sculptor, his works can bring our thoughts back to the ancient times, it seems as if those works are telling us a historical samsara for memorizing those"encyclopedia"architects, such as Michelangelo.Since 1980s, the media and the critic have analyzed massively on Calatrava's works. And his design idea—"movement"is analyzed thoroughly by many authoritative periodicals and theory works. No doubt it is important to research the thought of an architect, but it is not an all-sided study. That's because the thought of any an architect is finally reflected by the shape of his works and because the cognition of an architect to people is initially affected by the shape of his works. In view of the above thought, this paper will emphasize on researching the formation of Calatrava's works from the angel—"movement".In order to avoid metaphysics, the author will research Calatrava's works honestly in scientific way and try to get deeper understandings. Therefore, this paper would like to discuss something in basic theory, background of present conditions, the concrete analysis and concrete researching. Firstly, making a concrete researching frame based on architectural modeling theory, which refers to research its shape from geometry, mechanics and materials. Secondly, in line with the principle of integrating theory with practice, the author will give a brief account of the above 3 points according to Calatrava and the background of his works. And then the author will clarify the concrete researching content, which refers to geometry and mechanics. The materials, as the carrier of geometry and mechanics, will be decomposed into the above two part to expound. In the part of researching geometry characteristics, the author, as a person seeing Calatrava's works at first time, explains the background of geometry in architecture domain. The author will analyze some common geometry forms in vision with the principal of visual psychology, and then summarize their dynamic effect in vision. Simultaneously, to comprehensively grasp the dynamism of geometry form in Calatrava's work, the author put them into a great time for crosswise contrasting with some dynamic constructions and then find their similarities and differences. In the part of researching mechanics characteristics, the author will analyze Calatrava's work from easy to the difficult in the light of mechanics consciousness with which is familiar by some architects. The aim is to find the relationship between mechanics characteristics and dynamism in vision. At the same time, the author will put them into a historical field for vertically contrasting with other architects who create well by mechanics consciousness. Thirdly, making a sketchy summary on Calatrava's design thought and making a conclusion on the process of whole researching and achievement.In scope of this thesis, this paper uses much scientific knowledge to analyze Calatrava's work under one thought and analyzes Calatrava's work by historical view. In depth of this thesis, this paper not only has analyzed some concrete characteristics of his works in the movement aspect, but also has made technical analysis on how these characteristics could produce, and summarize some experiences. However, because there is restriction on technical level and all sorts of conditions, the author has not been able personally to experience these masterpieces, therefore, if his understanding is not accurate perfectly, the author hope teachers could point out mistakes.