Hotel Avila (Wallace K. Harrison, 1942) in the 1940s (f. Postcard - Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)The projects presented here are organized in five topics derived from Caracas modern history: Suburban neighborhoods, Rockefeller´s Men, Oil Corporate Headquarters, The Single Commission and Linging On. Some vanished projects were also included in this list, due to their importance in the history of Caracas Modern architecture.
I. Suburban neighborhoods
a. Olmsted Brothers, (Boston, Ma.): Caracas Country Club (1928), Chacao, Caracas.
b. John R. Van Kleeck, (NY): Valle Arriba Golf Club, (1942), Baruta, Caracas.
II. Rockefeller´s Men
a. Harrison & Abramovitz, (NY): Hotel Avila (1942), San Bernardino, Caracas.
b. Donald (Don) Hatch and Associates, (San Francisco): Old US Embassy Building, (1957), with metallic mural by American artist Harry Bertoia, La Floresta, Caracas.
c. Robert Moses, (NY): Arterial Plan for Caracas Project, (1948), Caracas.
III. Oil Corporate Headquarters
a. Dale Badgeley & Bradbury, (NYC): Headquarters building of Shell Caribbean Petroleum Corporation, (1946), San Bernardino, Caracas.
b. Lathrop Douglass, (NY): New headquarters building of Creole Petroleum Corporation, (1955), Los Chaguaramos, Caracas.
IV. The Single Caracas Commission
a. Aymar Embury II, (NY): La Ciénaga House, (c. 1940-demolished in the 1990's), Caracas Country Club, Caracas.
b. General Motors Overseas Operations, (Detroit): CARS building, (1948), with a work by Venezuelan Artist Jesús Soto, Los Chaguaramos, Caracas.
c. Holabird & Root & Burgee, (Chicago): Hotel Tamanaco, (1953), with Venezuelan architect Gustavo Guinand van der Valls, Las Mercedes, Caracas.
d. John & D. Eberson, (NY): Teatro Junín, (1950), with the Venezuelan architecture and construction firm Velutini & Bergamín C.A., El Silencio, Caracas.
e. Arthur B. Froehlich & Associates, (Beverly Hills): Hipódromo La Rinconada, (1957), with Brazilian landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx, La Rinconada, Caracas.
f. Richard J. Neutra, (Los Angeles): González-Gorrondona House, (1965), with Spanish landscape architect Eduardo Robles Piquer (RAS. Spain, - 1993), Parque Nacional El Avila, Caracas.
g. Johnson & Burgee, (NY): Cubo Negro (1975), with Venezuelan architect Carlos Eduardo Gómez, and Venezuelan artist Jesús Soto, Chuao, Caracas.
V. Linging On
a. Donald (Don) Hatch and Associates, (San Francisco):
Macoroma House (1951), Valle Arriba, Caracas.
Las Mercedes Commercial Center (1955), Las Mercedes, Caracas.
Sucre building, Headquarters of Mobil Oil Corporation (1950s), La Floresta, Caracas.
NCR building (1959), Colinas de Bello Monte, Caracas.
b. Clifford Charles Wendehack:
Caracas Country Club Golf House (1930), with Venezuelan architect Carlos Guinand Sandoz, Caracas Country Club, Caracas.
Planchart & Co. building, (1940s-demolished in the 1970s), Avenida Lecuna, Caracas.
Villa Barberenia (1940s), Caracas Country Club, Caracas.
Villa Mercedes (1930s), El Pedregal, Caracas.
Villa N. 7 (1940s), Los Chorros, Caracas.
Villa La Estanzuela (1940s), Valle Arriba, Caracas.
Peña Viva House (1940s), Caracas. Phelps building (1940s), Caracas Country Club, Caracas.
c. John R. Van Kleek:
Valle Arriba Golf Club House, (1947), Valle Arriba, Caracas.
I. Suburban Neighborhoods
Olmsted Brothers (Boston, Ma.)
Caracas Country Club (1928), Chacao, Caracas.
Caracas Country Club in 2006 (f. 2006, Google Earth).
Of all the 20th-century neighborhoods in Latin America, the Caracas Country Club treasures one of the most extraordinary stories: this neighborhood is a classified project of the Landscape Architecture firm Olmsted Brothers of Boston, Massachusetts, that continued the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., the father of Landscape Architecture and defender of the natural beauty of America.
Caracas Country Club in 2009 (f. 2009, Raquel Scharffenorth - Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana).
John R. Van Kleeck (NY)
Valle Arriba Golf Club (1942), Baruta, Caracas.
Valle Arriba Golf Club in the 1950s (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
The land belonged to the Hacienda Las Mercedes, an old sugarcane plantation. The urban design, the clubhouse architecture and the golf courses were all commissioned to John R. Van Kleeck, who developed a series of similar projects in the US during the 1920s and 1930s. The Valle Arriba Golf Club was the third course to be constructed in Venezuela, and the second in Caracas, after the Caracas Country Club and the Maracaibo Country Club. The golf courses are developed on an irregular area of forty-three hectares, while the residential neighborhood occupies 25 hectares. It has 18-hole golf fields and a hundred parcels of approximately 2,000 square meters each, with large mid-century houses and gardens, placed in a natural, countryside-like setting. It was listed as a National Landmark in 2005.
II. Rockefeller´s Men
Harrison & Abramovitz (NY)
Hotel Avila (1939-1942), San Bernardino, Caracas.
Hotel Avila (f. Luis Toro - Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
Hotel Avila in 2010 (f. 2010, Odoardo Rodríguez - Colegio de Arquitectos de Venezuela, Caracas)
The hotel´s plan was born from the stunning views and the unique location, throwing centrifugally its two slender rectangular wings into the landscape. These rational volumes are articulated at the point where are inserted the free-form curved roof of the entrance, the lobby and the ballroom, forms derivative of the modernism of Calder, Léger and Arp. The building is torn between free form and the conformity of the rectangle, between the modern and the historical, between Yacht Style and Spanish Colonial Style, the international and the Caribbean, rigidity and freedom.
In 1944 its expansion was entrusted to Clifford Wendehack. His project was reformulated by and built by the American company Hegeman-Harris. In 1946 the main hall was completely renovated according to a project by Badgeley and Bradbury (Dale Badgeley had worked in the late thirties at the office of Harrison in the design of the Trylon and of the Perisfera for New York´s World's Fair, 1939).
Hotel Avila in 2010 (f. 2010, María F. Sigillo - via facebook group Caracas en retrospectiva)
Harrison & Abramovitz did no further works in Caracas, but were consultants for the project of the Hospital Ortopédico Infantil (1945). The Hotel Avila since its opening became a reference for the entire region. It was listed as a Landmark in 1973.
Old US Embassy building in Venezuela (1957), with a metallic mural by American artist Harry Bertoia, La Floresta, Caracas.
Old US Embassy building in 1963 (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
Don Hatch had worked with André Fouilhoux and Raymond Hood in the Rockefeller Center from 1934 to 1942 and in the Universal Exhibition of 1939. He arrived in Caracas in 1948, as a representative of IBEC Technical Services. Corporation In 1951 he formed his own office in Caracas (Oficina Don Hatch). He had designed in 1956 the U.S. Embassy in Port au Prince, Haiti.
In 1958 the building permit for the new U.S. Embassy building in Venezuela was signed, and construction was completed near to a major Caracas avenue at the end of 1959. The lot´s area is of 3,370 sq. meters and the building area 3,430 sq. meters. The elegant single-volume building shows Hatch´s concern for maximum efficiency, for the use of steel and for precise detailing. The metal mural over the entrance was designed by American sculptor and designer Harry Bertoia, and belongs to his Screens, a series of architectural sculptures from the 1950s. This work also performed as a brise-soleil.
A new U.S. Embassy building was completed by Gunnar Birkerts & Associates in 1994 on a hill in Caracas. The former embassy building was altered in the north and south facades and lost its original exterior finish, before the building was listed as National Landmark in 2005. Bertoia´s mural is fortunately still in place.
Arterial Plan for Caracas Project (1948), Caracas.
Arterial Plan for Caracas Project. The Expressway Caracas, connecting to the Caracas coastline. At the center, the proposed Caracas-La Guaira Railway (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana).In 1947, Wallace K. Harrison contacted Robert Moses to do a new road proposal for Caracas to comply with the recent traffic recommendations planned for the city, as well as important urban improvements. Moses came to Caracas as an advisor to Nelson A. Rockefeller, in April 1948. His project, called the Arterial Plan for Caracas, done with six other American consultants, proposed the creation of a new road system with a express connection to La Guaira, the main seaport of the region. It was based on modern highways and distributors and on the inclusion of railways.
III. Oil Corporate Headquarters
Dale Badgeley & Bradbury (NY)
Headquarters of Shell Caribbean Petroleum Corporation (1946), San Bernardino, Caracas.
Headquarters of Shell Caribbean Petroleum Corporation (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
The Shell Building is the first of a set of headquarter buildings self-built in Caracas by the multinational oil companies. It opened in 1948. The project followed a Beauxartian scheme, creating a massive cornerstone that acts as the visual background for the axis of the Avenida Vollmer and its central mall. In doing so, this building belongs to the collection of monumental urban corner sites and "grand metropolis perspectives" typical of the neighborhood of San Bernardino, for which it was a trend-setter.
Headquarters of Shell Caribbean Petroleum Corporation (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
New headquarters of Creole Petroleum Corporation in 1955 (f. Archives of Sociedad Venezolana de la Industria Petrolera SVIP - via facebook group Caracas en retrospectiva)
In 1944, the Creole Petroleum Corporation (Standard Oil of New Jersey), decided to leave its old address at the Plaza Mohedano in Caracas, to construct their own building. In 1947 they purchased a land in Los Chaguaramos, near the new Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas.
In 1953, construction began. According to Architectural Record in 1955, the building was "a remarkable example of American design and construction technology exported to distant places." Its author, Lathrop Douglass, was a renowned architect who had theorized on the design of postwar buildings and was a specialist in industrial architecture, shopping malls and offices, including a building for the Standard Oil, built in 1945 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
New headquarters of Creole Petroleum Corporation (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).
The Creole building is a suburban office building, economically efficient. Later on it would be called by its new inhabitants as "The White Giant of the South" due to its location, big and solitary, in the middle of a huge parking lot, its contact with the street. Douglass described it as a building for a tropical location with a great height. It presents a long and narrow single volume, with a glass façade walls and continuous windows. The long axis runs east-west, and the offices are looking north or south. The service areas are placed in the closed ends. Douglass had another commission in Caracas: the Palo Verde Plaza (1970s). It was listed as National Landmark in 2009.
Aymar Embury II (NY)
La Ciénaga House (c. 1940- demolished in the 1990´s), Caracas Country Club, Caracas.
La Ciénaga House in 1994 (f. 1994, Hannia Gómez - Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
This lost double-courtyard residence was inspired in the colonial houses of the Caracas historic center. Its Neocolonial architecture dated from c. 1940. It had tiled roofs, a single floor and a porch opening to the south into a vast garden. Embury was the author of many important works in New York City since the 1920s, and later from the 1930s to the 1950s, when he worked with Robert Moses. Among his buildings since the 1920s are college buildings, private residences, social clubs and public parks, like the Princeton Club in New York City, the University Club in Washington, D.C. and Central Park´s Children´s Zoo. This was Embury´s only work in Venezuela.
General Motors Overseas Operations (Detroit)CARS building (1948), with a work by Venezuelan artist Jesús Soto, Los Chaguaramos, Caracas.
CARS building on the Avenida Los Ilustres in the 1950s (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).In 1948, on a corner site facing the Plaza Las Tres Gracias, near the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas. the "land of great inventions", would begin construction the CARS building.
CARS building in the late 1940s (f. Armando Planchart - In: El Cerrito, Gio Ponti´s Masterpiece in Caracas).
The project was designed by the General Motors Overseas Operations of Detroit, Michigan (Job N. 7716), and owned by the Venezuelan businessman Armando Planchart, who later would also be the owner of world wide famous Villa Planchart (Gio Ponti. Caracas, 1957). It included an office tower, an exhibition space and a automobile retail and service facility, and originally depicted a 1979 work called "Ambiente", by the Venezuelan artist Jesús Soto.
The building, with its elegant and harmoniouly composed brick volumes and discreet office tower, is still one of the best buildings from the 1940s in the city. Although it was listed on 2009, a big cubic billboard disfigures the original volumetry.
Hotel Tamanaco (1950-53), with Venezuelan architect Gustavo Guinand van der Valls, Las Mercedes, Caracas.
Hotel Tamanaco in the 1950s (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
Built between 1950 and 53 at the end of Avenida Principal de Las Mercedes, the Hotel Tamanaco was designed by Holabird & Root & Burgee, a Chicago company that developed several hotel projects in Latin America for Intercontinental. In Venezuela they also built the Hotel del Lago, in Maracaibo.
Hotel Tamanaco in June, 1958 (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
The hotel is located on top of a hill which dominates the valley of Caracas. It features a "V" plan open to the visuals of El Avila mountain. Each of the two original wings of the building has 12 floors. The facades are composed with horizontal lines. A series of trays at the base of the building contain social areas that open onto a large terrace and a pool. Parking lots were placed in the back of the building. Initially the hotel had 400 rooms and 42 suites without air conditioning. This modern ziggurat is topped by a monumental sign with the name TAMANACO.
The President of the Republic and the president of Tamanaco, C. A. -the hotel´s construction company-, Gustavo San Román, chaired the opening ceremony of the hotel, about which stated the brochure: "Today, there is nothing more modern than what is eternal, and the Hotel Tamanaco is an example," and also: "This building is a testimony to the fact that Utopia may well be an urban paradise. " It was listed in 2005 as a National Landmark.
Teatro Junín (1950), with Venezuelan architecture and construction firm Velutini & Bergamín, El Silencio, Caracas.
Teatro Junín (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
John Eberson with his son Drew designed in 1947 the Art Deco Teatro Junín, to be built in a corner site of the historic center of Caracas. John Eberson was a Romania-born American architect best known for historical movie palace designs. The Teatro Junín, with a capacity of 1218 seats, was the most luxurious movie theater that Caracas had so far, and marked the beginning of a new series of luxury cinemas in the 1950s.
Teatro Junín from Plaza O´Leary (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).
The corner site volume is symmetrical and curved, with a cylinder that emerges two levels above the cornice of the rest of the building. An acrylic coating with a neon lighting system was used here, contrasting with the opaque frieze of the side facades. Access is emphasized with a marquee and a sign.
Teatro Junín in 2007 (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
The building has six levels with an independent office area in all floors and retail in the ground level. Although it was listed as a National Landmark in 2009, it remains badly damaged.
Hipódromo La Rinconada (1957), with Brazilian landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx, La Rinconada, Caracas.
Hipódromo La Rinconada (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).
Arthur B. Froehlich was an architect known for mid-century historical supermarkets and racetracks. The Hipódromo de La Rinconada was designed in 1957 and began construction on the site of La Rinconada belonging to the Hacienda El Valle. Its innovative stands systems was later applied in the reconstruction of the Longchamps racecourse in France, in Ascot, England, and in Belmont Park, in the United States. This hippodrome was one of the most modern in the continent, and was often compared with the best in the world. It was inaugurated on July 5, 1959.
Hipódromo La Rinconada (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).
The project consisted of 45 buildings with galleries, administrative and sports areas and horse stables. The central building -with 18 main entries-, has three separate galleries, of three levels each, with a capacity of over 20,000 spectators. The large terraces and lounges, areas for spectators and spaces to watch the horses before the races, realize the importance given to the recreational and social life areas. It has three tracks, -two for races and one for training- a veterinary section with a hospital, stables, restaurant, pool equine and three galleries, one of which was luxuriously decorated, belonging to the Jockey Club.
Three metallic spheres that look out over the roof of each of the stands, work as radio and television transmission booths. Although this complex was listed as a National Landmark in 2009,its original access areas have been altered with the construction of a new metro and railway station.
González-Gorrondona House (1963-65), with Spanish landscape architect Eduardo Robles Piquer, Parque Nacional El Avila, Caracas.
González-Gorrondona House (f. "Familia Gorrondona", Ignacio Martínez Gerdes. - Caracas en retrospectiva).
This spacious house was designed by Neutra in 1963 and built in 1965. It is located on a spectacular site: a cliff of El Avila mountain. No other private construction is permitted within the area of the Parque Nacional de El Avila, at the north of the city. To to justify it, its owner was conferred the honorary role of Park Guard. The González-Gorrondona House enjoys an exceptional view of Caracas, amidst carefully designed gardens.
González-Gorrondona House (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).
Neutra´s project followed a first unbuilt project for the same place designed by Gio Ponti. The house´s aesthetics are that of a large modern structure with big cantilevered balconies and terraces thrown into the panorama.
Johnson & Burgee (NY)
Cubo Negro (1974-75), with Venezuelan architect Enrique Gómez and Venezuelan artist Jesús Soto, Chuao, Caracas.
Cubo Negro (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).
The "Cubo Negro" (The Black Cube) outstands for the purity of its volume, for the over whelming use of glass and of its black color, for the high quality of its construction, for the fine execution of the details and the plastic beauty of the central space.
Cubo Negro´s central space with art by Jesús Soto (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).
A diagonal axis goes across the building´s volume, creating a large central space populated by tall columns, among which is integrated a hanging sculpture by Jesús Soto, called Suspended Virtual Volume (1979). The design dates from 1974-1975, and construction from 1976-1978. The land has an area of 18,200 sq. meters and the building of 96,000 sq meters. It has three parking basements, retail at the ground floor and office areas. It was listed as a National Landmark in 2005.
V. Linging On
Macoroma House (f. Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural, Caracas).
The Macoroma House was designed in 1951 for Venezuela businessman José Manuel Sánchez. The house is located on an irregular and gently sloping terrain of more than five thousand sq. meters, which dominates the visuals of Valle Arriba Golf Club´s courses. Is has a single level and a "U" shaped plan, and a cantilevered balcony that runs all across the southern facade, facing the mountain to the north.
Three functional bodies are inscribed within a square of thirty meters on each side, organized around a landscaped central courtyard, which adapts to the topography. The house sits on a stone podium, visible on the rear facade. The concrete roof a is two-plane inverted plate with wide concrete eaves. It was listed as a National Landmark in 2005.
Don Hatch (San Francisco)
Las Mercedes Commercial Center in 1957 (f. Mariano de Aldaca, Architectural Photography, Shell - CIC UCAB)
Las Mercedes Commercial Center in 1957 (f. Mariano de Aldaca, Architectural Photography, Shell - CIC UCAB)
Sucre building (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
Sucre building (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)Don Hatch (San Francisco)
NCR bulding in 2004 (f. Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural, Caracas)
Caracas Country Club Golf House (1930), with Venezuelan architect Carlos Guinand Sandoz, Caracas Country Club, Caracas.
Caracas Country Club Golf House (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
Skecth drawing of Caracas Country Club Golf House, by Clifford Ch. Wendehack, 1929 (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
Clifford Charles Wendehack
Planchart & Co. building (1940s-demolished in the 1970s), Avenida Lecuna, Caracas.
Planchart & Co. building (f. Postcard - Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
Clifford Charles Wendehack
Villa Barberenia (1940s), Caracas Country Club, Caracas.
Villa Barberenia in the 1960s (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
Clifford Charles Wendehack
Villa Mercedes (1930s), El Pedregal, Caracas.
Clifford Charles Wendehack
Villa N. 7 (1940s), Los Chorros, Caracas.
Villa N. 7 in 2007 (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)Clifford Charles Wendehack
Villa La Estanzuela (1940s), Valle Arriba, Caracas.
Clifford Charles Wendehack
Peña Viva House (1940s), Caracas Country Club, Caracas.
Phelps building (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)
Phelps building main entrance (f. 2009, Gorgal - Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas)Valle Arriba Golf Club House (1947), Valle Arriba, Caracas.
Valle Arriba Golf Club House (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).
Valle Arriba Golf Club in the 1950s (f. Archives of Fundación de la Memoria Urbana, Caracas).
- Preinventario Arquitectónico, Urbano y Ambiental Moderno de Caracas 2005/2006, Fundación de la Memoria Urbana / Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural, Caracas, 2007.
- Catálogos del Patrimonio Cultural, I Censo Nacional de Patrimonio, Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural, Caracas, 2005.
- Frechilla, Juan José Martín, y Texera Arnal, Yolanda (compilators), Petróleo nuestro y ajeno: la ilusión de modernidad, Consejo de Desarrollo Científico y Humanístico, UCV, Caracas, 2005.
- Gómez, Hannia. "Olmsted en Blandín", Papel literario, EL NACIONAL, Caracas, 2006.
- Lamprecht, Barbara, Neutra, The Complete Works, “Casa Gorrondona”, Taschen, 2000, Pp. 453-454.
- Newhouse, Victoria, Wallace K. Harrison, Architect, Rizzoli, New York, 1989, Pp. 96-97.
- ICOMOS Venezuela. "Venezuela Modern Heritage". Icomos World Report 2001-2002 on Monuments and Sites in Danger. HatR, 2001-2002.
sencillamente genial, la información las fotos todo. Gracias!
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