Santiago Calatrava
Like a Bird
This is a historic exhibition. Dr. Wilfried Seipel has opened the Kunsthistorisches Museum to the work of an architect for the first time. The architect is the Santiago Calatrava, whose vast oeuvre in Europe and the US includes bridges, museums, furniture, housing, concert halls, exhibition and cultural centers and now many sports facilities and some of the master plan for the upcoming Athens Olympic Games.
Santiago Calatrava is an architect like no other. He not only breaks conventional boundaries with his “thought experiments,” to use a term of Albert Einstein’s, but has accumulated the technical knowledge to be able to carry them out in reality. The holder of a doctorate in engineering from the ETH of Zurich, this dreamer/engineer brings art and nature together in a way that is equally bold in its thinking and ingenious in its making.
The theme of the exhibition: Like a Bird
Buildings and birds. What do they have in common? Not a thing- obviously. The association makes no sense. Nothing is as static and immutable as a building. Nothing more mobile and free than a bird. What a counter-intuitive idea.
And what an intriguing one, precisely because it is antithetical to common sense and flies in the face of the workaday world. Like the work of the surrealist poets and artists, the oeuvre of Santiago Calatrava, through what Freud called Traumarbeit, draws on the world of wishes, longings and fantasies that we all share and makes them, surprisingly, come true.
The exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum presents approximately 40 of the finely crafted architectural models of bridges and buildings belonging to the renowned Calatrava collection. The selection is made on the basis of their incorporation of the bird theme. Some are static, but some are mechanically animated. In addition, the exhibition presents some watercolors by Calatrava, who always uses watercolours as a means to problem-solve, whether in relation to forms or to engineering.
The KHM offers a unique opportunity to develop this theme, thanks to its historical links with the Naturhistorisches Museum. The Director of the Vogelsammlung at that institution, Dr. Ernst Bauernfeind, is contributing a section devoted to the theme of the bird as an aesthetic and structural solution. He will be presenting, among other things, 3 bird skeletons to be mounted on high podia out of reach of the visitors, two stuffed birds shot by the rifle of Emperor Leopold that are masterpieces of taxidermy because they picture the birds in flight. This addition provides the exhibition with the aura of the Wunderkammer. The addition of bird songs from the collection, also selected by Dr. Bauernfeind, adds to this aura.
Calatrava’s work has a profound effect on the general public. Perhaps it is because of the underlying bird-analogy in his work. After all, birds are among the animals cultures have always identified with. It is also one of the only animals most of us we dream of being. This is probably why it also moves children and excites their imagination. For this reason, the curator, in collaboration with Robertina Calatrava, has chosen 3 models to be presented on lower podia than the others and to be put at the disposal of children. They will be able to set these building elements in motion in various ways: by pulling a string, by turning a hand crank, by pressing a button. As opposed to the other models, they are polychromic.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Skira. It is introduced by Dr. Wilfried Seipel, and contains an essay on by the guest curator, Dr. Liane Lefaivre (who has just been nominated Professor of Architectural History and Theory at the Universitat fur Angewandte Kunst Wien) , on the theme of “Like a Bird.” It will place the bird analogy in a broad cultural context of the fascination with flying. It will be based to some extent on an interview carried out with Santiago Calatrava. The other essay is by Dr. Ernst Bauernfeind. It delves into the field of bionics as it applies to the structural and aesthetic issues involved in the “design” of real birds. In addition, the catalogue features a fascinating interview with Santiago Calatrava himself reflecting on the presence of bird-like elements in his work. It is presented in the Bassano Hall and in the Halls that are next to it on the Second Floor of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Dr. Liane Lefaivre
Curator
