Rooftop view from my central Madrid hotel showing arched Moorish-style windows:
Felix Candela was a Madrid-born structural engineer noted for construction work using thin shells made out of reinforced concrete which was very advanced technically for its time.
As he spent much of his life in exile during Franco’s time most of the public buildings he designed are outside Spain, principally in Mexico, but the roof of the Our Lady of Guadaloupe church in Madrid is a good example of this aesthetically pleasing combination of material science and geometrical design. The style had its heyday in the period from the 1950’s to 1980’s but has since gone out of favour with the development of more versatile construction materials.
