|
|
Vol. LXII, No. 51
|
|
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
|
|
|
|
Vol. LXII, No. 51
|
|
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
|
Hailing Félix Candela as one of the “new magicians of concrete,” a 1958 Time Magazine article described the Spanish-born engineer’s “soaring shell structures” as “the pride of Mexico City, useful for everything from churches to bandstands.” Fifty years later, the work of the one-time Spanish ski champion who fought with the Loyalists still seems magical in the Princeton Art Museum exhibition, “Félix Candela: Engineer, Builder, Structural Artist.”
Recognized as one of the great structural artists of the twentieth century, Candela (1910-1997), who emigrated to Mexico in 1939, designed and built innovative thin shell concrete roof structures using the hyperbolic paraboloid geometric form. The exhibition examines Candela’s process of design and construction through several of his most significant works, and is particularly noteworthy because it represents a collaboration between the museum and Princeton University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Under the direction of David P. Billington, who is Gordon Y.S. Wu Professor of Engineering and director of the University’s Program in Architecture and Engineering, and Assistant Professor Maria E. Moreyra Garlock, students visited buildings designed by Candela and recreated them as models for the exhibit. The pedagogical aspect of the project continues with the curricula of classes like “Strucutres in the Urban Environment” and “Introduction to Architectural Thinking” incorporating aspects of the project. In a recent gallery talk at the museum, Mr. Billington and Ms. Garlock reported that undergraduate and graduate student products resulting from the three-year effort include senior theses, dissertations, conference papers, journal articles, book chapters, and a website.
Looking at the soaring, curved roofs of models of Candela creations like the Lomas de Cuernavaca Chapel, the Milagrosa Church, Los Mantantiales Restaurant, and the Bacardi Rum Factory, it is difficult to remember that the wood used in both the originals and the models does not bend. Nicknamed “The Shell Builder,” Candela experimented with conoids, folded slabs, and elliptical domes. In her gallery talk, Ms. Garlock noted that computers, which were not available to Candela during the 1950s when he did most of his umbrella-like designs, have since validated his work. The design that first brought him to attention was a 1950 concrete shell for Mexico’s University City Cosmic Ray Pavilion, designed with Architect Jorge Gonzélez Reyna. So precise was the building’s engineering, that its minimum thickness was five-eighths of an inch.
Candela’s design credos strongly resonate with today’s interest in sustainable structures. As the Art Museum exhibit observes, his work reflected “the true ethos of engineering — to conserve natural resources by minimizing materials; to reduce cost by intimately connecting design and construction, and to create beautiful forms.”
The Candela exhibition continues through Sunday, February 22. The Princeton Art Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information see artmuseum.princeton.edu.