Final+Project

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Caracas

U.C.V.

"Cota 905", Caracas.


 * __A view to Caracas´s Architecture.__ **

Finishing with our English course, it´s time to review the topics we have been developing along these moths. On the way to practice and fully understand them, I´ve created this mini-documentary about Venezuelan architecture, specifically Caracas´s architecture. We´ll be talking about color, lights, texture, acoustics, rhythm, vertical & horizontal circulation, and space & scale, elements which give character, style and personality to the constructions and make each architectural expression unique. Also, as our career is, it´s difficult to talk about it leaving apart other inherent aspects that had influenced on the formation of the Venezuelan architectural expression. Nowadays, Caracas preserves very few constructions from the colonial era. Originally, Venezuelan architecture was a mixture of indigenous culture and cultures acquired from other nations, which came to the country with the arrival of the Spanish. Popular housing in the colony was characterized by the simplicity of its forms, without many scenic effects, while the sobriety was the main characteristic of aristocratic mansions, with a strong Moorish influence inherited from the southern Spain. For almost a century, Caracas was named the “city of red roofs”, referring to the material used in the construction of roofs: tiles, typical of colonial houses. From an aerial view of the city, the only thing you could see was “red”. But in the last 30 years, it has produced a radical change in the urban design and image of Venezuela’s capital city. Technology and oil growth has great influence on that. All the spaces are covered by lots of volumes and vertical buildings, imposing viaducts, great avenues, shopping malls, which at the same generate a great contrast with ranches created on Caracas´s Mountains: lots of informal constructions (the contrast is a first feature that could distinguish this nation from the rest). Another important aspect on urban growth is earthquakes: Caracas is located in a seismic zone, therefore had to be rebuilt several times in history. Thus, the main city today presented as historical heritage, its core foundational set of blocks that make up a grid in its center dominated by the Plaza Bolívar. Inside the city is containing valuable monuments of religious architecture, civil-public and to a lesser extent, domestic. 
 * Color.**

Maybe color isn´t an aspect that provide so much distinction to the city from the rest of the world, but we could make differentiations in periods of time where exist a transition of color styles in the architecture: most of the Latin-American countries went through a colonial era; in those days streets were multicolor, each house differed from the other by a specific color, the colors in the buildings and spaces were very intense, for example. B ut today, predominantly gray concrete and asphalt, the bright mirror of the vertical glass elements, the colorful billboards and the orange of the ranches in the hills. 
 * Lights.**

In a tropical location like this, is not so difficult to find light for the constructions, in fact, is so easy that facades designs avoid light in order to maintain a fresh temperature. As we know, architects create buildings being aware that they must respond to the local climate. Each building has outgoing elements in the façade which avoid so much light and hot, but also allow having contact with the exterior space from inside the building. However, mistakes could make us unique too. In Caracas exists some constructions whose design responds to another type of climate different from ours; example, the black cube: its entire facade, internal and external spaces were created for cold climates.


 * Texture.**

As I mentioned, all the urban view is covered by gray, orange in the hills and huge mirrors. That means principally that most of the construction materials are concrete, asphalt, glass and brick. But that´s pretty common, so textures that could make our city and the country unique and different are those formed by traditional construction materials: stone (in Los Andes there are many constructions with this material, counting churches), adobe, mud, plant fibers (indigenous buildings), tiles, etc.


 * Acoustics and rhythm.**

In our case acoustic spaces are created just for scenic presentations, most of this spaces are theaters: Teresa Carreño, Aula Magna (UCV), etc. At the same time we talk about rhythm because architectonical structures and internal spaces are created in a rhythmical way most of the time with acoustic intentions. But in general there is not control in urban rhythm in Caracas; the city continues growing up everywhere and day by day there´s fewer living space. There are some urbanizations created without urban planning, old constructions mix in new ones, so the general look is disturbing. We could say that inside a few buildings could exist some ornamental rhythm but most of the city lacks organization and rhythm.


 * Circulation.**

As a capital city, Caracas is dominated by vertical elements, we don´t have skyscrapers yet, but we have many high buildings. So it´s very common see many elevators and stairs on each construction. We also have the ropeways (like huge lifts); in Mérida, in Caracas there is the Ávila mountain were is a ropeway too, and now there are ropeways even in the hills which transport people from streets to ranches. The concept of ramps doesn´t work too much in Caracas, the subway has ramps but it´s wear to see them. Mechanical stairs, like every city, works on subways, shopping mall, those kinds of places. This could be considered a diagonal way of circulation.


 * Space and scale.**

Trough the time, the city has grown up since a little scale to a big scale, and now is a huge city in height and volume. However, there is another sharp growth difficult to ignore because it occupies most of the city´s visual, the hills. Ranches have increase their existence since immigration from other Venezuelan states to Caracas stared, and today continues increasing. Almost half of the city is covered by them. It´s a great social and economical problem we have. And, as we said, the more construction built, the less space for living. Parallel to that, population is increasing uncontrollably too; this may seem unimportant in this work for us, but it is, because the number of people living in one place can affect the appreciation of that place, in other words, while there are more people, the space looks smaller. So, analyzing all these aspects, the general appreciation I got is that architectonical problems that Venezuela and Caracas have are not independent situations, but are connected and are related to other problems that also exist in the country and therefore cannot be solved separately. For example, and we mention it several times, ranches are related to poverty, which is related to economical problems, and these informal constructions represent a danger for people who live there, that is related to health problems, structural instability that could get worse with the weather, and also the insecurity, drugs and violence which are lack education problem (people who live in poverty doesn´t have the opportunity to study and training themselves). All of that take us to the architectonical situation in which Caracas is developing as a capital city nowadays. Maybe this is unique in the world.

@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6txog-Asr90
 * Now see my documentary about this work, follow the link: