ABSTRACT
On March 1, 1960, the architect Eduardo Robles wrote to his colleague and fellow-exile Félix Candela (1910–1997) to congratulate him on the publication of his work in the Spanish journal Arquitectura. “I was as moved as you might have been,” writes Robles, “by the affection and the treatment you get from those who considered you so annoying only a few years ago, when they could not publish a thing of yours.” 2 After years of conflicted relations with, and censorship of, Félix Candela, Arquitectura, the official publication of the Chamber of Architects of Madrid, dedicated its October 1959 issue to him. 3 This included a brief essay by Candela, an extensive thirty-two-page review of his work, and a series of laudatory commentaries by several Spanish architects and critics. 4 What was of significance for Robles, though, was less what these commentators pointed out than what they failed to mention: “they intentionally leave out something that has always characterized you: your liberal ‘political’ strength, in which they never believed.” For Robles, this aspect was not only of paramount importance to understanding Candela’s work, but was also related “to what you have done with the theories on shell construction.” 5
