Santiago Calatrava has his own bridge to nowhere

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Festivities marking the completion of a new pedestrian bridge in Venice by the Spanish starchitect Santiago Calatrava — the first built in the city in more than 70 years and just the fourth crossing the Grand Canal — have been canceled. The problem? Pick one: It’s over budget, three years overdue, has no wheelchair access and, according to one local detractor, ‘looks like a lobster.’ (Seafood-related architectural criticism comes easily to the Venetians.) The bridge, linking the main train station with Piazzale Roma — where tourists from the around the globe go to rent cramped Fiats with manual transmissions — will instead open quietly sometime in the middle of the month.

(Guess what? Calatrava’s bridge in Dallas is having problems too.)

— Christopher Hawthorne