Chapel Lomas de Cuernavaca, Cuernavaca, MéxicoĮmerging from behind the trees, this open-air chapel’s roof is a monument in itself. Interior view of the roof Source- ©Archdaily Zoomed hypar of the roof Source- ©Archdaily 4. Candela’s experiment with geometry and structural expression has made this building an international star. The walls are made up of glass that allows an influx of light from all sides. Its sculpture-like RCC roof has 4 hyperbolic paraboloids intersecting with each other to form an eight-sided groined vault. The delicacy in its design theory is in contrast with its structural interventions. It is located in the Xochimilco area of Mexico City and shelters a large barrier-free restaurant space. The Restaurant Los Manantiales is rightly called La Flor, which means “the Flower”, as it sits on the edge of a lake, blooming like a flower. Restaurant Los Manantiales, Mexico City, Mexico Cosmic Rays Pavilion Source- ©Archdaily Entrance to the laboratories Source- ©Pinterest Old picture of Cosmic Rays Pavilion Source- ©Pinterest 3. The entry into the interiors is from a stairway that is hidden behind the support. Candela introduced three supports to hold the RCC structure and corrugated RCC walls to the front and back of the shell. It is 12 meters long and 10.75 meters wide in the span. It resembles a horse saddle and has a thickness of a mere 5/8 inch at its thickest. It is one of the pioneer works of Felix Candela, where he conjoined two hyperbolic paraboloids to develop one thin-shell structure, which is the thinnest ever Reinforced Concrete (RCC) structure ever made. The Cosmic Rays Pavilion, located in the National Autonomous University of Mexico, was commissioned to be built as a laboratory for the measurement of cosmic rays radiation. Cosmic Rays Pavilion, Mexico City, Mexico Outer half bays Source- ©Pinterest Interior View Source- ©Archeyes Interior View Source- ©Getty Images Interior View Source – ©Archeyes 2. This church stands as an outstanding example of Brutalist Architecture. The exterior is beautiful but the real expression lies in the interior of the church. Further, he adjacently placed four of these combined hypars edge to edge to form the nave of the church. Then he put two of these hypars back to back to form the interior bay. He then pulled the shorter side from the middle, forming a half bay and the legendary pointed arch of the Gothic Style. Let’s simplify, he took an asymmetrical hypar umbrella and placed it on the ground in an inclined position, so that the shorter side touches the ground. With the Gothic principle of minimizing the usage of material over a large space in awareness, he used his hypars as an explanation for the same. Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Mexico City, Mexico | Félix CandelaĬandela was elated to design a religious building because he believed that a religious building has a defined purpose and a single floor, where the structure will always play the titular role. His following works will take you through his journey from simple forms to complex geometries and why he is rightly branded as the magician of structural expressions. He went on to design more than 300 shells in his time.įélix Candela followed three typical philosophies, first that use of natural resources should be encouraged and there should be minimal usage of materials in construction, secondly, the cost of the project should be reduced by interconnecting structure and design and last was to make beautiful forms. He used various permutations and combinations with his hypars and designed many forms like an umbrella, or a folded hypar, or intersecting hypars, etc. He used hyperbolic paraboloids as the basic module since it is the only geometry that can be constructed using straight beams and can hold its weight, along with that he also constructed folded plates, cylindrical vaults, and elliptical domes. He was the forerunner of thin shell structures popularly known as ‘”cascarones”, astonishing us with its minute thickness and hard concrete brutalist forms. Felix Candela, an architect by training but an engineer and a sculptor by choice.
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