Final+Project

Venezuela is an extraordinary country; it, like everything, has bad and good things, but architectonically there are some factors which make from Venezuela an unique place and that's what I want to expose, which are the factors that make Venezuela unique and how to keep building this unique country.  Venezuela is a tropical country located in the North of South America, that's why we can enjoy, almost the whole year, of a warm temperature and sunny days.



When building in Venezuela it's important to take into account that sun could be so hard, it is not like other countries where architects look for the sun and try to make it get into their buidings, here in Venezuela sun is always above us and when building we have to create a shelter and you have to think about how to illuminate in a natural way and also protect from the sun. In my opinion Carlos Raul Villanueva in "Plaza Cubierta" at the Central University of Venezuela achieves the challenge of creating a space of shelter from sun and also well illuminated by creating a floor that reflects lights and also separating the roof in levels letting light get in through the groove, also creates with perforated brick an interesting game between light and shadow.



I personally find venezuelan people, warm and that's something I think should be reflected in our architecture, and it's something that could be achieved by using color in buildings or incorporating art to them. Here there are some examples of what I think represents venezuelan atmosphere like Cruz Diez's work at Simón Bolívar Airport, some walls at the Central University Of Venezuela, the facades of colonial houses or some "ranchos" in El Hatillo. 

 Texture as color, gives sort of warmth to buildings, it represents their skins and makes that getting into them becomes a different experience. The Teresa Carreño theatre has on its inclined facade a work made by Harry Abend what gives another sense to this wall. 

Venezuela is a beautiful country, however there's a lot of disorganization what makes that great cities like Caracas, become a complete chaos, Caracas is a chaotic city because there's too many people living there and it has not been designed to shelter that quantity of population, and overpopulation develops other problems like traffic, overcrowding, unemployment, pollution, etc. 

Focusing on traffic we can say that in Caracas, because of its uncontrolled growth, has not been developed the necessary infrastructure for the amount of people that live there, what makes venezuelans lose a lot of time everyday when trying to move to their jobs or houses. Here there are some works of infrastructure to try solving these problems, but Caracas needs more like them because they are not enough for this growing city and if we had more of this works, circulating in the city wouldn't be an odyssey. 

<span style="background-color: #430f0f; color: #0cc6bc; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Noise is other problem big cities have to face, and it is also originated because of the population, that's why architects have to be instructed in acoustics, because noise could become a building into an uninhabitable place, and it is more important to take into account when the building is meant to acoustic functions, like a theatre or a concert hall. In Venezuela there are some master pieces in acoustics like "Aula Magna" at the Central University of Venezuela or "La Concha Acústica". <span style="background-color: #430f0f; color: #0cc6bc; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

<span style="background-color: #430f0f; color: #0cc6bc; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Venezuela has modern architecture and also colonial and there's something used in architecture called rhythm, we can find it no matter what architectural style. Rhythm creates a harmony in buildings and it's produced by repeating series of elements, it's like making music. These are some examples or rhythm in Caracas. <span style="background-color: #430f0f; color: #0cc6bc; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

<span style="background-color: #430f0f; color: #0cc6bc; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I use to say Venezuela is kind of a "chaotic paradise", is a very beautiful country with beautiful landscapes, great people, the perfect weather and a lot of talent, but there are other factors which overshadow its beauty, I hope with this I can show the overshadowed beauty and show what to take into account when trying to make architecture in Venezuela, like the weather, the geographical situation, all the problems mentioned before, etc., in order to keep giving extraordinary architectonical works to give beauty and solutions to the problems in our cities and contribute in the construction of our unique country.

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