A new book on Felix Candela’s architecture, by Princeton Engineering professors David Billington and Maria Garlock, has been named one of the top ten architecture books of 2008.
The beautifully wrought book, published by Yale University Press, features photographs, working drawings, and essays. Its publication coincides with an exhibit at the Princeton Art Museum, which displays models made by Princeton students under the supervision of Garlock and Billington.
Candela’s thin-shelled concrete structures are both delicately sculptural and structurally robust. Billington and Garlock refer to Candela’s work as "structural art" and say that Candela’s work illustrates three important tenets: "the first is the true ethos of engineering, namely the drive to conserve natural resources; the second is the ethic of engineering, to resist wasting money; and third, the aesthetic of engineering, to avoid the ugly."
In this 2004 video, Billington discusses the role of engineering in the liberal arts while talking about his previous exhibit at the museum, "The Art of Structural Design: A Swiss Legacy." This year Billington gave the Morison Prize Lecture in Science, Technology and Society at MIT.
The exhibit will be in Princeton through through Feb. 22 and then will travel to other museums in the United States and Mexico.
