With the Milwaukee Art Museum opened in 2001 and the new underground station at the World Trade Center in New York underway, Santiago Calatrava has been attracting attention from US newspapers and prestigious weeklies. In 1995 however, when the McConnell Foundation commissioned him to design a pedestrian bridge to connect the new museum with walkways along the river and the botanical gardens, the situation was quite a different one and the Spanish architect was little more than an illustrious unknown as far as American territory was concerned.

Something that has instead remained unchanged is his unmistakable style that combines engineering, architecture and sculpture. For the city of Redding (North of San Francisco), Calatrava has designed the Sundial Bridge, a glazed bridge just over 200 metres long with a cantilevered structure of cables supported on a single pier, 66 metres high. A design that amongst other things arises from a respect for the environment and natural surroundings. E.S.