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	title of this thread your message They are done by engineers, as far as I know. They carry cars and look good. No one wants to replace them with better looking bridges until they are decrepit. But now Santiago Calatrava is building bridges and they are breath-taking with their single spar suspensions. But I do not like them better than the bridges made by engineers. However, these bridges built by engineers are strikingly consistent in having irreducibile unity of design. Even the Golden Gate Bridge makes one say, "Wow, what a bridge." Conversely, Mr. Calatrava, an architect with a capital A, makes bridges that make one say, "Wow, look at that, have you ever seen a bridge with a single spar like that before?!" Mr. Calatrava's work, virtuosic though much of it is, often does not attain irreducible unity of design. I like Mr. Calatrava's work. I like Mr. Piano's work. But elements of each man's designs stick out and prevent any sense of irreducible unity in more than a few of the buildings, bridges, etc., of each man, something common engineers routinely achieve in building something as unsexy as Interstate highway bridges. I am calling this the eclipse of design by high concept engineering, because I do not know what else to call it. Perhaps I am like Mr. Jones in the old Bob Dylan song: "There's something goin' on here And you don't know what it is, Do you, Mr. Jones?" But down the long thread of history, great structures, and many good humble ones, have evidenced the kind of unity I am talking about. So: I cannot get over the feeling that I actually may know what is going on here, and it may be that extremely talented designers and architects are straying from the pursuit of irreducible unity in their designs knowingly. You say as much about Renzo Piano when you say he does not aspire to such things and that it is fruitless to evaluate him in terms of such things. You imply he just wants to ask why it is being built, then figure out the most sensible way to do it and by so doing contribute to society. I reckon you are probably right; that probably is all he is trying to do, and that is no small contribution to society to try to think of rational, original ways of building space for use that work with the environmental context, rather than against it. But... Why can ordinary civil engineers build Interstate highway bridges large and small with irreducible unity of design, but Piano and Calatrava not only don't, but don't appear to wish to try to. I do suspect this much... Something is not right here, And I don't know what it is, Do I, Mr. Koen? associated web images (optional) associated web link (optional) your email your password create a forums account \| you forgot your password?