Felix Candela, one of the most important and iconic architects of the 20th century, became world-renowned for his many captivating concrete-shell structures in Latin America and across the globe. This collection of essays centers on his departure from Mexico City and arrival in Chicago during the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, providing a unique lens in the specific political, economic, and material conditions that always surrounded, often promoted, and occasionally inhibited his work. Candela's curious relocation from Mexico City to Chicago at the seeming height of his professional output is rarely discussed and the political and economic conditions that facilitated much of his work and motivated his departure is seldom considered. And yet, it is exactly through studies of this period and the particular constellations that surrounded it that a more complex understanding of his oeuvre emerges and larger connections about architecture during the mid-20th century can be drawn. In contrast to the existing literature, this will be the first book to investigate Candela's transition by focusing on his work in Mexico and the US. While his work is conventionally understood through his contributions to structural engineering, a seemingly inescapable reading, Candela is here viewed as an architect who structured a new architectural space of smooth curvature and rough concrete. These are not only essential and so far overlooked aspects that this publication will shed light on but they also unearth a complex web of relationships that enable us to simultaneously see Candela's architectural experimentation as well as the economies and politics that supported or hindered them. In order to achieve a multifaceted view the book draws as much from historical research as from oral histories and contemporary investigations and theories.

Captivating photographs of construction processes, essays by historians and architects, interviews by former colleagues and current practitioners, as well as first-time translations of Candela's writings are in dialog to vividly display Candela's unique position at the intersection of Latin-American and US architecture. The book reveals as much about Candela's late period as it reveals the specific conditions in Mexico and the US.