PICTURE THIS

PICTURE THIS

The Oculus by Santiago Calatrava

Opened in March 2016, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in New York City’s Lower Manhattan district – the Oculus – was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to resemble a dove taking flight.

About 110 metres long and 35 metres across, the arched, elliptical structure contains 10,400 tonnes of structural steel. Seen here, the 6,000-square-metre main concourse, which sits 50 metres below the apex, is lit by natural light streaming in through the gaps between the softly curving structural ribs. Calatrava says that light acts as a structural element – that the Oculus is supported by ‘columns of light’.

The Oculus is also a memorial to the victims of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. Each year, at 8.46am on the anniversary of the attacks, the time at which the first plane hit the World Trade Center’s North Tower, the building’s glass spine retracts, creating a skylight that runs the length of the space. The building is positioned so that the opening frames the sun at 10.28am, when the North Tower fell.

Calatrava’s designs combine impressive structural qualities with sculptural elegance. Born and raised in Valencia, Spain, he studied architecture at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura in Valencia and structural engineering at the ETH Zurich – a combination of disciplines that was rare at the time. ‘I was determined to put to one side all that I had learned in architecture school,’ he once said, ‘and to learn to draw and think like an engineer.’ ■