Time and Place

Time: 4:30pm (Central)
Location: Architecture and Urban Planning Room 170 – UWM Campus – 2131 E Hartford Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53211

Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago presentation by Alexander Eisenschmidt, Dipl.Arch., Ph.D.

Lecture Summary:

Félix Candela’s captivating structures in Mexico and across the globe made him one of the most important and iconic architects of the 20th 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. Hear from Alexander Eisenschmidt, who edited Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago, a new book that links analyses of Candela’s 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.

BIO:

Alexander Eisenschmidt is a designer, theorist, and Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture. He directs the Visionary Cities Project, a research-based platform devoted to the contemporary city and speculations on new forms of architectural urbanism and collective housing. Eisenschmidt is author of The Good Metropolis (2019) and editor of Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago (2024) among other volumes. He has curated and his work has been exhibited internationally in venues such as the Architecture Biennale in Venice, the Art Institute of Chicago Museum, and the Shenzhen Biennale on Urbanism.

All lectures are free and open to planners, students, staff, faculty, and friends of the University. Please contact Karl Wallick, Department of Architecture