Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago

During this presentation, Alexander Eisenschmidt, editor and convener of this volume, presented the publication and Geoff Goldberg, Jonathan Miller, and Kathryn E. O'Rourke discussed their contributions to Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago (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 twentieth 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 book includes contributions by Alexander Eisenschmidt, Juan Ignacio del Cueto, Nader Tehrani, Elisa María Teresa Drago Quaglia, Kathryn O’Rourke, Jonathan Miller, George F. Flaherty, Stanley Tigerman, Geoff Goldberg, William Baker, Bob Bruegmann, Stuart Cohen, Ero Aggelopoulou-Amiridis, and Kenneth Schroeder, in addition to translations, interviews, and republications by Félix Candela, Reyner Banham, Ester McCoy, Alvin Boyarsky, and Carl W. Condit (in the order of appearance).

The manuscript for the book 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.

The presentation was followed by a reception and book signing. A limited amount of copies of Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago were available for purchase at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

→ Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago: Rise and Fall of Experimentation in Concrete (ACTAR, 2024).

Thanks to the Graham Foundation and the School of Architecture at UIC for partnering for this program.

RELATED EVENTS

Book launch in Mexico City
Date Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 12 pm
Presenters Alexander Eisenschmidt, Juan Ignacio del Cueto, Elisa María Teresa Drago Quaglia, Antonia Candela, and moderated by Pablo Landa
Location Museo Experimental El Eco (Sullivan 43, Col. San Rafael, Mexico City, CP 06470)

EVENT PHOTOS