A hard knock for Calatrava

Santiago Calatrava, architect and designer of the Milwaukee Art Museum addition,takes a hard knock from Sarah Williams Goldhagen of the Harvard School of Design, writing in The New Republic. [It may require free registration to read it all.] Excerpt:

There is a word that characterizes the phenomenon that I am describing. That word is "kitsch."And as Calatrava builds more architectural projects, it becomes increasingly apparent that much of this work is not even well-considered kitsch. Consider Calatrava's long-standing interest in kinesthetic architecture. His extremely large structures often sport movable parts: the roof of the WTC hub will open to the sky every September 11, and the flapping "wings" of the Milwaukee Art Museum offer a slowmotion image of a bird taking off from the ground. It's cool. But for an architect who claims that his design principles are grounded in the natural world, it is more than slightly ironic that Calatrava exhibits little interest in environmentally responsible ("green") architecture. When in motion, these buildings must consume more energy than others thrice their size.