Calatrava was born in Benimàmet, an old municipality now integrated as an urban part of Valencia, Spain, where he received a degree in architecture at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.[1] There he completed independent projects with fellow students, publishing two books on the vernacular architecture of Valencia and Ibiza. In 1975 he enrolled in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland, for a second degree in civil engineering. In 1981, after receiving his doctorate in civil engineering for his thesis, "On the Foldability of Space Frames", he started his architecture and engineering practice.