Félix Candela

Architect, Spain
Félix Candela’s works in Mexico, the majority of which were executed between 1952
and 1968, provide some of the finest examples of functionality fused with plastic
expression that exist in that nation to date. His forms are extremely reductive and simple,
and his approach is clearly seen in works such as his ultrathin shells, particularly the
hypar shell (1.5 centimeters) of the Cosmic Rays Pavilion (1952) at the new campus of
the National Autonomous University in Mexico City and in the vaults of the Mexico City
Stock Exchange (1955).
Candela’s genius in devising new methods of calculating shell forms is illustrated by a
variety of roof constructions, such as the simple umbrella, and short and long vaults.
These structures attest to his technical expertise and his fluency in geometry as well as
his sense of poetry, as seen in what are widely regarded as his free-edged masterpieces,
Las Manantiales Restaurant (1958), where the structure, consisting of an octagonal
groined vault composed of four intersecting hypars, appears, lotus-like, to float on the
waters at Xochimilco, and La Jacaranda Night Club, designed in collaboration with Juan
Sordo Madaleno (1957), an innovative shell derived from the intersection of three hypars,
a form in complete harmony with the surrounding shoreline.
Candela arrived in Mexico City in 1939, part of the diaspora of Spanish intellectuals,
architects, artists, and other professionals who were fleeing a country wracked by civil
war. He encountered a vital nation emerging from a decade of revolution and another of
reconstruction. Mexican architects and structural engineers were being called on to
envision and construct innovative, multifunction structures on the city’s unstable subsoil.
Candela flourished in this environment; his work in the design and construction of
prismatic slab shells of the Hidalgo, Convent, and Monte Alpas schools (1953) are
examples of his concern for sound structural design and economy, as is his later work in
designing the Zaragoza and Candelaria Metro Stations (1967). His work in residential
construction is similarly marked by dedication to simplicity, whether in the execution of
single-family homes (Romero residence, 1952) or apartment houses.
His construction firm, Cubiertas ALA, begun in 1950 in partnership with
his brother Antonio and sister Julia, participated in Mexico’s rapid
industrialization in the postwar years, as it completed over 800 factories
and warehouses in the 1950s and 1960s. Of particular significance among
these works were those shells constructed for Bacardi and Company: the
Bacardi Distillery (1955) and Bacardi Bottling Plant (1960), the former
including a large, thin handkerchief dome over the fermenting tanks
derived from a sphere of 24 m radius. These works, along with the Ciba
Laboratories (1953), Aceros de Monterrey factory (1955), Lederle
Laboratories (1955), and the High Life Textile Factory (1955), yield
evidence of the considerable creative energies and resources dedicated to
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 402
industrialization at that time, as well as attesting to Candela’s growing
fluency in the development of shell forms.
Throughout his career Candela stressed the limited nature of architecture. Unlike other
architects and engineers practicing in postrevolutionary Mexico, such as Ricardo
Legorreta, Alvaro Aburto, Enrique del Moral, and others, Candela did not believe that
architecture could rectify complex social problems. As his works progressed from
experimental funicular vaults to cylindrical shells and various umbrellas to the free-edge
hypar, and in collaboration with prominent architects such as Enrique del Mora and
Mario Pani, he continued to emphasize efficiency and economy. His final work in
Mexico, the Palacio de Deportes for the 1968 Olympic Games, manifests his talents in
structural mechanics and design.
Yet his work cannot be seen as strictly utilitarian. In his design of the Church of the
Virgen de la Medalla Milagrosa (1953), he employed hyperbolic paraboloids to yield a
concrete roof of only 4 centimeters’ thickness, a sign of his technical genius. The
resulting interior, however, indicates much more: the resulting internal space evokes the
solemnity and mystery of Gothic architecture, a dramatic play of light and shadow that
envelops and transports the worshiper to a different plane.

Selected Works
Fernández Factory, San Bartolo, México, 1950
Pisa Warehouse, San Bartolo, México, 1951
Cosmic Rays Pavilion (with Jorge González Reyna), UNAM, Ciudad Universitaria,
Mexico City, 1952
Church of the Virgen de la Medalla Milagrosa, Mexico City, 1953
Hérdez Warehouse, San Bartolo Naucalpan, México, 1955
Lederle Laboratories, Coapa, México, 1955
Bacardi Distillery, La Galarza, Matamoros, Puebla, México, 1955
High Life Textile Factory, Coyoacán, México, 1955
Stock Exchange (with Enrique del Mora), México City, 1955
Coyoacán Market Hall, Mexico City, 1956
Music Pavilion (with Mario Pani), Unidad Santa Fe, México, 1956
Insignia, Tequesquitengo, Morelos, Mexico, 1957
La Jacaranda Night Club (with Juan Sordo Madaleno), Hotel El Presidente, Acapulco,
Guerrero, México, 1957
Las Manantiales Restaurant (with Joaquín Álvarez Ordóñez), Xochimilco, México,
1958
Chapel of San Vicente de Paul (with Enrique del Moral), Coyoacán, México, 1960
John Lewis Store (with Yorke, Rosenberg and Mardall), Stevenage, Herefordshire,
England, 1963
Zaragoza Metro Station, Mexico City, 1967
Candelaria Metro Station, Mexico City, 1967
Palacio de Deportes for the Olympic Games (with Enrique Castañeda and Antoni
Peyri), Magdalena Mixhuca, México, 1968
University of King Abdulaziz (as consultant of Project Planning
Associates), Jidda, Saudi Arabia, 1975


Selected Publications
“Candela dice,” Calli (México) 33 (May-June 1968)
“Cubierta prismática de hormigón en la ciudad de México,” Revis ta Nacional de Arquitectura (México) (March 1950)
“Design and Construction in Mexico: Shell Construction,” Industrial Building (September 1961)
“Divagaciones estructurales en torno al estilo,” Espacios 15 (May 1953)
En defens a del formalismo y ot ros es critos , Bilbao: Xarait Ediciones, 1985
“Estereoestructuras,” Espacios 17 (May 1953)
“Estructuras laminares parabólico-hiperbólicas,” Informes de la Construcción (Madrid) (December 1955)
“Hacia una nueva filosofía de las estructuras,” Cuadernos de Arquitectura (México) 2 (1961)
“The Shell as a Space Encloser,” Arts and Architecture (January 1955)
“Shell Structure Development,” Canadian Architecture (January 1967)
“Simple Concrete Shell Structures,” American Concrete Ins titute Journal (December 1951)
“Toward a New Structure,” Architectural Foru m (January 1956)