Art: The Prisoner of Geometry

At 53, Spanish-born Felix Candela of Mexico is perhaps the most unassuming architect alive. About the closest he has ever come to immodesty is to say of his shell-like concrete structures and umbrella roofs that "this is the most functional architecture there is." His adopted country enthusiastically agrees. There are more than 325 buildings in the republic that are at least structurally designed either by Candela or by authorized agents of his firm. Probably 100 more have sprung up in the rest of Latin America, as well as in the U.S. and Britain....

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