Investigating the socio-cultural and political conditions that shape the architecture of Caracas, Venezuela
When a society is severely damaged by internal conflict as Venezuela is, it becomes imperative for architecture to become more involved with the issues that condition its development. Founded upon this belief, this polemical thesis uses research and design to investigate the socio-cultural and political conditions that shape Venezuelan society. Taking Caracas as a case study and site, this thesis also seeks to understand how the aforementioned issues relate, or could relate, to the city’s architecture and urbanism.
As an initial act of negation and resistance against the political context of the city, the novel Doña Bárbara, by Venezuelan author Rómulo Gallegos, was used as the key source for the narrative and critical approach to the design. The other key foundation for the thesis was the site selected for the design; in addition to its brutal(ist) architectural and urban character, Bolivar Avenue has been the focus for key social and political events.
The design superimposes a grid (an iconic element in the history of architectural discourse) on to the site, which was modified to respond to specific local conditions. This began to restructure the city at an urban scale, creating new quadrants, and forming new critical spatial configurations and opportunities. Doña Bárbara enters the process by informing the project’s narrative structure, which draws upon specific chapters and characters in the novel.
This enlivens and humanises the project, as the design of the built form evolves through a dialectical relationship between the characters’ lives, the authoritarian orthodoxy of the grid, and the reality of the existing city. The redesign of the avenue ultimately represents a journey, from one end to the other; at times political, at times architectural and spatial, at times poetic, but always critical, and always hopeful.
