Miguel Fisac: encofrado flexible

Miguel Fisac's own studio in Madrid: concrete poured into flexible formwork, 1971.

Miguel Fisac, 1913-2006, patented and used an idea in the late 1960s for polythene and a rigid frame as formwork for concrete, feeling that using wooden boards as shuttering was 'an incorrect texture' with its references to carpentry and organic and familiar wood grain.  Concrete on the other hand was 'a material that was poured in a liquid state, more closely approximating a stream of volcanic lava'. [this from the Fundacion Miguel Fisac and the section 'Epidermal Years']

Diederik Veenendaal, writing about Fisac for a dissertation at ETH Zürich, refers to Paul Galabru's 1964 book Obras de fábrica y metálicas and 'encofrado flexible' (flexible formwork), from which he speculates that Fisac, had he owned this book, would have found it an influence. 

Fisac himself is an influence, clearly in the work of Mark West, who began to use flexible formwork in 1986.  Trust that this kind of material sensuality came from Latin culture.