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CHOICE Review

Jodidio's book is a disappointing monograph about an exciting designer. Calatrava's stunning designs for bridges, towers, and terminals in Europe and North America identify him as the latest in a distinguished tradition of modern engineer/artists that includes Robert Maillart, Pier Luigi Nervi, and Felix Candela. Jodidio's effort does not approach the quality of Kenneth Frampton's Calatrava Bridges (CH, Jan'94). Though the selection of color and black-and-white photographs is excellent, the trilingual text (English, French, and German) is frustratingly brief. The author is more interested in the poetic metaphors that inform Calatrava's work than the engineering calculations required to construct his graceful structures. Concept sketches are included, but there are few analytical drawings. The use of dark ink on black pages renders a 13-page chronology of Calatrava's projects virtually unreadable. The bibliography is woefully inadequate and undermines the value of this monograph to serious researchers. People unfamiliar with Calatrava's oeuvre will find the gorgeous photography stimulating, but advanced students of engineering and architecture will find little that enriches their understanding of this provocative designer. General readers; lower-division undergraduates. D. P. Doordan; University of Notre Dame