The Sept 1 New Yorker has an interesting piece by Rebecca Mead (which I cannot find on its site, but maybe you can) on how our bridge designer designs:
He does not work with a computer or with drafting equipment; each of his buidlings begins with a sheaf of paint-dappled pages. His archive in Switzerland includes more than a hundred thousand sketches…Â
This facility no doubt helps with the fundraising:
In Dallas, where two Calatrava bridges are being built, he pulled out the watercolors after lunch at the home of Margaret McDermott, a local philanthropist who contributed two million dolars to the project. (“He reached into his briefcase and dipped a brush into his water glass,” Mary McDermott Cook, McDermott’s daughter, recalled of the occasion. “My mother said, ‘Get him another glass of water!'”)
