Concrete Errors, or The Magic of Shells

Abstract

 Error has played a particularly important role in the development of the structural and architectural technology of concrete, a material whose aesthetic and mediatic dimensions have allowed for the exploration of error in its most suggestive meaning, that of deception through visual trickery, similar to magic. This article reveals the fundamental role of error in the magic behind one of the most renowned and successful examples of modernist architecture: the concrete shells built in the mid-20th Century by Felix Candela and his construction company Cubiertas Ala. Starting with two of the company’s most resounding errors – the partial collapse of one of its concrete shells during the construction process and the company’s financial collapse – this article offers a new critical history of these concrete shells, revealing how crucial an embodied form of error was to their production process.