He would have been 100 years old in 2010: Madrid- born Félix Candela is considered to be a master of concrete shell construction for elegant and formally sophisticated vaultings that are easy and inexpensive to construct. In this anniversary year an exhibition in his home city is showing the ingenious ideas and designs of this exceptional master builder.

Always open to ideas, but also with a critical spirit, he aligned his work to two criteria: on the one hand he created architectural designs that were spectacular in terms of form and dimension; on the other he approached his work with a mathematical method that allowed him to construct certain forms, achieved by cutting geometrical figures, which unfold in space with great complexity. Born at the beginning of the 20th century, Félix Candela chose architecture as his occupation between 1940 and 1997. Candela is seen as the creator of a construction system that is characterised by two of the typical features of the world in the 20th century: the employment of steel-reinforced concrete and the definition of the architectural space including the fourth dimension: time. A Spanish 'Hidalgo' who, although he had lived for 30 years in Mexico, never lost his Madrid accent and who was personally and directly responsible for the project planning and the construction of approximately one million square metres of converted space. Candela is considered to be a master of concrete shell construction for elegant and formally sophisticated vaultings that are easy and inexpensive to construct. His 'Pabellón de los Rayos Cósmicos' (pavilion of the cosmic rays) in Mexico City, completed in 1950/51, set the trend for a great many of his further buildings. He implemented more than 300 projects for the 'Cubiertas Ala', which was founded in 1950 and specialised in the production of thin concrete construction shells, together with Enrique de la Mora and Fernando López Carmona also, among others. His works also include religious and commercial buildings. Of his designs for various facilities within the context of the Summer Olympics in 1968 only the 'Palacio de Deportes' (Sports Palace) was realised. The large aquarium in the Spanish city of Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias, 'L'Oceanogràfic', which he designed, was only completed after his death in 1997.

A comprehensive book to accompany the exhibition in the Conde Duque in Madrid, including articles by Pepa Cassinello and Mike Schlaich, invites one to discover the person Félix Candela and his world, and how structural challenges dissolve into poetic and bizarre forms and how technical progress could be implemented in expressionistic architecture.