The Reina Sofía Palau de les Arts by Santiago Calatrava

The Reina Sofía Palau de les Arts is a stunning building designed by the Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava.

It is like a great sculpture replete with symbolism, and its nautical profile evokes the sea and its setting in the old riverbed of the Turia.

With an area of more than forty thousand square metres and a height of over seventy-five metres, this building, with its innovative design, houses four theatres for opera, musicals, ballet and theatrical events.

It has overhanging platforms at different heights with walkways and gardens, which can be reached by panoramic lifts and staircases set inside the steel sheath on either side of the building.

The contrast between the opaque steel sheath and the transparency of the vast, glassed-in spaces produces changing sensations as one moves through the building.

A metal structure in the shape of a feather extends from a reinforced concrete pillar.

The basic shape of the building is a dome under a great cascade of steel resting on two supports, with the eastern side of the roof projecting entirely unsupported.

The main material used for building is white concrete, which covers its major structural supports, closely followed by mosaic, which is used for the Palau's spectacular roofs.

The Palau is encircled by more than sixty thousand square