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Santiago Calatrava was born in Valencia, Spain on July 28, 1951, and has been practicing on a professional level for only about 17 years. After only 10 years, he had already made a name for himself, establishing his work as the standard by which later engineering design should be measured.
Before he was designing these amazing structures, however, he was a student of art, or architecture, then of engineering. In 1968, at the age of 17, he began his schooling in an art school at Valencia. after just one year, he switched to architecture school, at the "Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Valencia." He also did post graduate studies there in Urbanism.
After a five year study of architecture, he went on to study civil engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. (In his words, the reason he decided to go from one area of study to the next, rather than double majoring, was that he is unable to think about more than one thing at a time.) After 4 years of engineering school, he continued his studies as a doctoral student at the same school. His thesis was entitled, "Concerning the Foldability of Spaceframes."
In 1981, Calatrava began his professional practice by opening an architectural and engineering office in Zurich. His first realized project was the Jakem Factory in 1983, in Munchwilen, Switzerland. His second office was opened in Paris in 1989.
In his almost 20 years of practice, he was won countless awards, including the 1992 "Gold Medal of the Institute of Structural Engineers," and the 1987 "Auguste Perret UIA Prize."
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