#Felix candela miami series

P h o t o s b y J u a n I g n a c i o d e l C u e to The Bacardí bottling plant, Naucalpan, 1959. A month after he arrived he was appointed The Shells of Félix Candela Juan Ignacio del Cueto Ruiz-Funes Researcher in the UNAM Architecture De-partment.

The exhibition documents fourteen of his gravity-defying concrete shells, including the Pavilion of Cosmic Rays at UNAM in Mexico City (1951) the Chapel Lomas in the outskirts of Cuernavaca (1958) Los Manantiales Restaurant in Xochimilco, Mexico City (1958) and the Palace of Sports for the Olympic Games in Mexico City (1968). The first steps in Candela’s profes-sional career in Mexico were difficult.

#Felix candela miami series

He argued that in architecture, “Form cannot be arbitrary rather, it must satisfy an innumerable series of requirements … the two that I consider most important in the elaboration of architectural form : the aesthetic factor and the structural factor.” Working not only as an architect, but also as a builder and a contractor, Candela recognized the great importance of structural efficiency, and his experiments pushed architecture’s formal and material limits. Candela saw aesthetic implications as inseparable from engineering concerns. In addition to structural advancements, these curved and cantilevered forms brought new textural and atmospheric qualities to the social and communal spaces they shelter. The hotel is located in the coastal zone that is located on the edge of the bay. Through architectural models, plans, and photographs of construction sites, Félix Candela’s Concrete Shells tracks the evolution of his designs and emphasizes their ingenuity. His designs evolved as feats of architectural engineering, using hyperbolic paraboloid geometry. The exhibition spotlights Flix Candela ’s Concrete Shells through photographs, architectural models, and plans, as well as archival material from his time as a professor at the School of. In the 1950s, Candela debuted his experimental signature shell structures by designing a continuous curved surface of minimal thickness. The exhibition sheds light on his visionary work through photographs, architectural models, plans, and videos, as well as his time as a professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) from 1971–1978.īorn in Spain and exiled to Mexico at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939, Candela spent thirty years in Mexico, where he established his career as an architect. In addition, the Bosque de Chapultepec has three artificial lakes, one of them faces this cultural space whose history dates back to 1964 by the director of works of Mexico City at that time. Félix Candela’s Concrete Shells: An Engineered Architecture for Mexico and Chicago roots Félix Candela (1910–1997) as one of the most prolific architects of the 20th century in his designs with advanced geometries and lasting influence in contemporary architecture.