MADRID — In the latest development in the ongoing travails of Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish architect, construction workers are due to start removing the crumbling mosaic facade of Valencia’s opera house on Monday.

The structural problems of the Queen Sofía Palace of the Arts, which has been closed since last month because of a risk of falling tiles, is the latest controversy surrounding the work of Mr. Calatrava. The opera house, one of his flagship projects, is at the heart of the massive City of Arts and Sciences complex that Mr. Calatrava designed to help transform his native city of Valencia.

Mr. Calatrava covered the opera house with thousands of tiny mosaic tiles, using a technique made famous over a century earlier by Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona. But the Valencia authorities threatened to sue Mr. Calatrava last month after chunks fell off in high winds, forcing the closing of the building ahead of Christmas performances and the cancellation next month of Puccini’s “Manon Léscaut,” directed by Plácido Domingo.

Máximo Buch, an official from Valencia’s regional government responsible for economic affairs, on Friday announced that Mr. Calatrava and the building companies responsible for the opera house had agreed to remove the fragile tiles and cover the cost of the repair work, estimated at around 3 million euros, or $4 million. Instead of replacing the mosaic tiles, the building is to be painted white, at least as a temporary solution to allow the opera to reopen and resume its season late next month.