Born in Spain in 1951, Calatrava for the past three decades has been based in Zurich, where he earned a doctorate in technical science at the Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule and established his own office. His career got off to a fast start when, at thirty, he began executing the striking series of bridges with which he made his name. Before long he was being compared to the great Swiss-French engineer Robert Maillart, whose pared-down bridges, viaducts, and other infrastructure of the 1930s became the International Style's ideal of the elegant solution in civil engineering.