Calatrava is lauded by MIT.

Internationally acclaimed architect, engineer and artist Santiago Calatrava has been awarded the 2005 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts by the Council for the Arts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Established in 1974, the McDermott Award in the Arts is given annually to a distinguished artist recognized for excellence and innovation in his/her field. Beginning this year, MIT has increased the award to $70,000 and raised the criteria, reflecting the award's growing status as well as the heightened importance of the arts at MIT.

Calatrava will also present a public lecture, "Recent Work," at MIT on March 8, from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in Room 10-250. As a visiting artist from March 8-10 he will meet with architecture, civil engineering and computer science students.

Calatrava will be presented with the award at a Council for the Arts gala on March 10, at the University Park Hotel in Cambridge, MA.

"I am deeply grateful that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology should recognize my work," Calatrava said. "But, even more, I am moved that this great institution should recognize the ability of art to inform and influence the exact sciences. In the era of Brunelleschi, no one doubted this potential. Today, when art and science are so often pursued as separate endeavors, MIT is performing a tremendous service by helping to bring them back together."

"It's thrilling to have the first of the new international McDermott Awards going to Santiago Calatrava," said Alan Brody, Associate Provost for the Arts at MIT. "He is the embodiment of the MIT ideal of interpenetration of science, technology and the arts. I'm sure that Eugene McDermott, for whom the award is named, would have been proud to see Mr. Calatrava as the 2005 recipient."