‘I have been treated like a dog,’ says Calatrava

‘I have been treated like a dog,’ says Calatrava

Calatrava is one of the world’s most prominent architects, known for majestic civic works like a train station in Liege, Belgium, and Athens’ Olympic Sports Complex built for the 2004 summer games. Santiago Calatrava complains to The Wall Street Journal that he’s been treated like a dog after the debacle of the World Trade Center PATH station and that he’s not even getting asked to compete in U.S. design competitions because of all the bad press cost overruns there have gotten.“I could not compete because people have not asked me to compete,” Mr. Calatrava, 63 years old, said in an interview in his Park Avenue townhouse.

“It has not been easy for me,” he said. After living in the city for 12 years and feeling pride in the city, “I have been treated like a dog.” he told the paper, though to be fair, the PATH train station is not the only Calatrava project that’s gone significantly over budget.

According to the WSJ, Mr. Calatrava isn’t yet to close up his shop. He is currently working on a six-mile bridge and tunnel combination in Doha, Qatar, and in April he announced he had been selected to design three bridges near Wuhan, China. He declined to offer specifics on commissions he would like to have won, but he noted that he was selected in 2013 to design a replacement for a Greek Orthodox Church destroyed in the 2001 terrorist attacks.