Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago: Rise and Fall of Experimentation in Concrete, ed. Alexander Eisenschmidt (Barcelona: Actar, 2024).
Félix Candela’s captivating structures in Mexico and across the globe made him one of the most important and iconic architects of the 20th century, and yet we know very little about his work in the United States and his life in Chicago during the 1970s. Understanding this transitional period, however, enables us to see his innovations in a new light and to reevaluate the contexts of his work. Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago links analyses of his celebrated structures with the specific societal, economic, urban, and material conditions that first facilitated his work in Mexico, then prompted his departure, and eventually complicated his practice in the US. The book, therefore, also adds to our understanding of architecture’s transnational exchanges, while further exposing its complicated and often troubled relationship with labor, capital, and politics.
The manuscript was awarded a Graham Foundation Publication Grant, a Creative Activity Award from the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research, and the Faculty Scholarship Support Grant at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The initial research for this project was sponsored by UIC’s Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research.
Book Launches will take place at the Graham Foundation in Chicago (5:30 pm, November 21, 2024) and the Museo Experimental El Eco in Mexico City (12 pm, January 26, 2025).
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