Caracas, memory of a capital at the forefront of the architecture of the 50s

Petroleum, economic boom, great works of the dictatorship: far from the economic crisis and today’s huge slums, Caracas was at the forefront of 1950s architecture, with projects from world-renowned designers.

It was a magical decade in which the capital of Venezuela saw the birth of some of its great jewels: the campus of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) -World Heritage Site-, the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) by the Italian Gio Ponti, the Villa Planchart and the Hotel Humboldt, a jewel of the Bauhaus on top of the El Ávila mountain that surrounds the city.

At the time there was a huge flow of oil and money and, supported by a flourishing budget, the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1953-1958) promoted a policy of large works that included bridges, highways, housing and modern towers for government offices.

“Beyond the legitimate criticisms that can be made” in terms of human rights and democracy, Pérez Jiménez “was an excellent project manager,” explains architect and university professor Óscar Rodríguez Barradas, who speaks of the “nationalist patriot dimension ” of the time.

“Modern architecture is the reaffirmation of the national, of ‘we can'”.

The period also coincided “with the arrival of European immigrants and a highly qualified workforce capable of carrying out these projects,” adds the expert.

Clouds

The Hotel Humboldt is “our Corcovado,” says Rodríguez. Located 2,150 meters above sea level, on the crest of this hill that separates Caracas from the sea, it was built in 1956 for mainly military reasons.

Pérez Jiménez wanted a cable car capable of transporting “800 soldiers per hour” from the port of La Guaira, on the other side of El Ávila, to the city center in case of disturbances, recalls Carlos Salas, current director of the Humboldt.

“There the need to create a space for entertainment” is generated, rest, and that is when the project is commissioned to the young architect Tomás Sanabria.

A student of the founder of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius, at Harvard University, Sanabria designed one of the most beautiful buildings of this style on the continent.

Until today it can only be accessed by cable car or by road with a rustic 4×4. From the city you can see the tower, with pure lines and wavy arches.

“The hotel floats in the clouds”, sums up the director. The interior of the building, restored by the Venezuelan State after years of neglect, is made up of large luminous spaces that the clouds seem to pass through, pushed by powerful winds.

Reopened to a wealthy clientele – a room costs $ 340 a night – the hotel aims to become a World Heritage Site by 2022.

Pérez Jiménez’s legacy can also be seen in the heart of the city with the Simón Bolívar Center (1954): two twin towers and long ministerial buildings, designed by the Venezuelan architect Cipriano Domínguez and which bear witness to “a very Corbusian language”. Rodríguez emphasizes.

With huge parking spaces and “waterfalls of stairs”, it was also the expression of the civilization of the automobile, then a sign of modernity and wealth.

Mariposa

Armando Planchart had a fortune amassed, selling American cars to the emerging middle class, when his wife Anala convinced him to build a mansion in the hills of Caracas. Subscribers to the prestigious magazine Domus of the Italian designer and architect Gio Ponti, decided to hire him to build his Villa Planchart (1957).

The Plancharts gave Ponti carte blanche to design the house of his dreams and create his “butterfly on the hill,” as he called it.

“He had almost no obstacle, neither with the resources nor with the owners who were very happy,” explains his niece Carolina Figueredo, who heads the Planchart Foundation.

Flooded by light from a central patio and facing windows, the house does not have many doors but it does have clear separations of the spaces.

Ponti designed practically everything: hinges, doorknobs, crockery, lamps, chairs …. It is a “total work of art” because in addition to architecture and design, he planned the placement of art collections, which include works of art. Calder, Leger, Buffet, Cabré or Reverón, explains Figueredo.

Ponti designed windows that look like paintings of views of El Ávila.

Ponti’s only disagreement with the family was the library. The owner wanted to display his African hunting trophies, something the designer did not appreciate.

Ponti solved the problem with a revolving wall worthy of a James Bond movie, which allows the heads of buffalo and antelope to be hidden or displayed.

“He was delighted with the result, but also with Caracas,” for which he designed a vast urban project that never saw the light of day, says Figueredo.

Air

The great architect of the time was undoubtedly Carlos Raúl Villanueva, who shone in the few houses he designed, as well as in the monumental public works.

His masterpiece is the University City of Caracas, headquarters of the UCV. “It is a constructed utopia,” says his daughter, also the architect Paulina Villanueva.

There are about 40 buildings, which include a hospital, a concert hall, libraries, classrooms, squares … that intermingle between exterior and interior spaces in unity. The covered passages, with ceilings that seem to hang in the air, are one of the great finds of this architectural genius.

“They are places of life and exchange, you go walking and you never lose contact with the outside, with the air, the light,” adds Paulina Villanueva. “My father thought that architecture was the construction of man’s vital space, which does not impose itself, but rather accompanies and stimulates”.

The project also includes works by renowned artists such as Vasarely, Arp, Lam, Leger or Narvaez.

The Aula Magna stands out, a vast auditorium decorated with Alexander Calder’s “Clouds”.

But with the unprecedented economic crisis that has hit Venezuela since 2013, the university is deteriorating: holes in walls and ceilings, damaged works, broken windows, leaks … In 2020, a section of a covered corridor collapsed.

“We are already talking about 25 years of neglect,” explains the architect, who worked at the UCV. “Hurt hurts!”.

“The teachers do not earn even US $ 10, there is no paper, the students have to buy light bulbs and remove them from the classrooms so they don’t get stolen.”

“For my father it was his second home, his most beloved work. I would not have understood ”his current state, laments Villanueva’s daughter.

Like the UCV, many of the buildings from that golden age are in disrepair. Others fulfill different functions such as El Hélicoide (1958), a shopping center transformed into a police station and prison, or were simply destroyed, such as the Villa Diamantina de Ponti.

“It was a generation of architects, of intellectuals who had a vision of the future”, highlights Paulina Villanueva. “They thought this future was possible. It was not”.