Carlos Raúl Villanueva
(London
May 30, 1900 - Caracas
August 16,
1975) was the most prominent Venezuelan
architect of the 20th
century and one of the great Modernist. He played a major role
in the development and modernization of Caracas, Maracay
and other
cities across the country. Among his most important works are El
Silencio Redevelopment which included 7,797 apartments and 207 shop
premises and the Ciudad Universitaria
, the main campus of the Central
University of Venezuela
, which is considered a masterpiece of modern city
planning, architecture and art. The Campus was
declared World Heritage Site by
UNESCO
in the year 2000 .
Early life and education (1900-1928)
Villanueva
was born in the city of London on May 30,
1900. He was the son of Carlos Antonio Villanueva
and Paulina Astoul from a family originally from Valencia
, Spain
who settle
in Venezuela in the 18th century. His father was sent as
an envoy from Venezuela to the Exposition Universelle of 1889
in Paris
where he met
Paulina Astoul and married her in 1893. A few years later, in
1896, he was appointed Consul General of
Venezuela in England
by the
government of Joaquín
Crespo. Carlos Raúl was born four years later near the
Venezuelan Consulate and was the youngest of the five children of
the family.
In the following years his family moved back
to Paris, where he received his basic schooling at the Lycée
Condorcet
. Later on he moved with his family to
Málaga
, Spain,
until 1919 when he returned to Paris. In 1922, following the
footsteps of his brother Marcel, Carlos Raúl was admitted to the
Second Class of the Department of
Architecture of the
École des Beaux-Arts and entered
the workshop of Gabriel Héraud. In 1925 he entered the First Class
of the Department of Architecture and worked closely with León
Joseph Madeline. During that time he collaborated on a project for
a
Hôtel d'ambassade a construire dans un pays d'Extreme
Orient with another student of Héraud's workshop,
Roger-Leopold Hummel, which won the Second prize of the Grand
Prix de Rome in 1928.
On June 6 of the same year, he received his Architecture degree and traveled for the first
time to Venezuela and the United States
where he joined the architectural firm Guilbert and Betelle with his brother
in Newark, New
Jersey
. Yet in 1929 Villanueva returned to
Venezuela and started working in the Ministry of Public Works as
Director of Buildings and Ornamental Constructions.
First Modernism (1929-1944)
After gaining some experience in France and the United States,
Villanueva arrives in Venezuela full of enthusiasm and ideas; in
particular, thanks to the influence of his close friend
Auguste Perret. Both men shared a profound
conviction that architecture was the art of organizing space.
Consequently, Villanueva sees himself as a man of action and will
work countless hours to fulfill his passion.
His first jobs were
on the city of Maracay, a city
which became the de facto capital of the country under General Juan
Vicente Gómez. He received his first important
assignment in 1929: the "Hotel Jardín". In his reform of the
building it was possible to already observe some features that will
become common in his designs. Among them were the use of covered
galleries to provide protection from the weather and the use of
interior courtyards and gardens to harmonize built and unbuilt
spaces. On
January 28, 1933, he married
Margot Arismendi Amengual, a member of the prominent, Venezuelan
Arismendi family.
His first important commission came in 1935 with the project to
build the
Museum of Fine
Arts of Caracas. This project allow him to create a space for
the exhibition of art, one of his most important passions. Already
at this time his devotion to the artistic vangards of the century
could be seen in his library, where his large collection of books
on architecture was complemented by those on art. It was also
during this time that he met the sculptor Francisco Narváez with
whom he collaborated in the Museum of Fine Arts as well as in a
series of other important projects like the "Natural Science
Museum"(1936 - 1939) and the "Gran Colombia School" (1939 - 1942)
which became Villanueva's first attempt to bring into fruition the
guiding principle of career: the synthesis of the arts. The
buildings also showed Villanueva's application of some of the most
defining ideas of
modern
architecture like the simplification of form and the importance
given to functionality.
On January 28, 1938, Villanueva married Isabel Margarita (Margot)
Arismendi Amengual and had four children with her.
Ciudad Universitaria (1944-1970)
Central Library
The
Campus and buildings of the Universidad
Central de Venezuela
are considered to be Villanueva's
masterwork. Built on the site of the old
Hacienda Ibarra - which originally belonged to
Simon Bolívar's family - and
connected to the new city center around Plaza Venezuela, the
project meant a massive undertaking of both urban planning and
architectural design. The administration of
Isaías Medina Angarita bought
the Hacienda Ibarra in 1942 in order to give the University a
larger location than the San Francisco Covent, giving Villanueva a
unique opportunity to applied his conscious integration of art and
architecture on a grand scale. This vast urban complex of about 2
square kilometres includes a total of 40 buildings and it remains
one of the most successful applications of
Modern Architecture in
Latin America. Villanueva worked closely with
all the artists who contributed with their oeuvres and personally
supervised the project for over 25 years until the late 60's when
his deteriorating health forced him to leave some buildings in the
design stage.
Artists who contributed in the Project
Shadows in the hall in front of the
Aula Magna
Quotations
Synthesis of the arts
Hans Arp (Cloud Shepher) and Mateo
Manaure (Mural) at the Ciudad Universitaria
In 1954, Villanueva described the guiding principle behind the
Ciudad Universitaria in the following way:
Works
1920s
- Banco Obrero and Banco Agrícola y Pecuario (Plaza Guirardot -
Maracay, 1929)
- Jardín Hotel (Plaza Bolívar - Maracay, 1929 - 1930)
1930s
"La Maestranza" Bullring
.jpg/250px-Interior_Galeria_Arte_Nacional_(Caracas).jpg)
Museum of Fine Arts
- Sports Club (Maracay, 1930)
- Plaza Bolívar (Maracay, 1930 - 1935)
- "La Maestranza" Bullring (Maracay, 1931 - 1932)
- Bolivarian Museum (Caracas, 1931)
- Mental Hospital (Caracas, 1931 - 1933)
- Plaza Carabobo (Caracas, 1934)
- Museum of Fine Arts (Caracas, 1935 - 1938)
- Museum of Natural Sciences (Caracas, 1934 - 1935)
- Venezuelan Pabillion at the Paris Exposition (Paris, France,
1937 - Demolished)
- Simón Bolívar Plaza (Valparaíso, Chile, 1938)
- Los Rosales and El Prado Residential States (Caracas, 1938 -
1940)
- Gran Colombia School (Caracas, 1939 - 1942); (currently the
Francisco Pimentel School).
1940s
Ciudad Universitaria
- Headquarters of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce (Caracas,
1940)
- La Concordia Plaza (1940)
- Buena Vista Preorientation Boarding School (Los Teques, 1940 -
1942)
- Passenger Terminal (Valera, 1941 - 1942)
- El Silencio Redevelopment (Caracas, 1941 - 1945)
- Radio Communications Building (Caracas, 1943)
- General Rafael Urdaneta Development (Maracaibo, 1943)
- Unidad Vacacional Los Caracas (1944)
- Ciudad Universitaria de
Caracas - Campus of the Central
University of Venezuela (1944 - 1970)
- Rafael Urdaneta Plaza (Caracas, 1945)
- University Hospital (Caracas, 1945)
- Anatomical Institute (Caracas, 1945)
- Rafael Urbaneta School (Maracaibo, 1945 - 1946)
- El Hipódromo Development (Maracay, 1946)
- Las Delicias Neighborhood Unit (Maracay, 1948 - 1952)
1950s
- Hacienda La Pimpera House (Barlovento, 1954)
- Diego de Losada Development (Caracas, 1954)
- Atlántico Norte Development (Caracas, 1954 - 1955)
- Lomas de Pro Patria (Caracas, 1954)
- Cotiza Housing Estate (Caracas, 1954)
- Artigas Residential Estate (Caracas, 1954 - 1955)
- La Vega Residential Estate (Caracas, 1955)
- 23 de Enero Development (Caracas, 1955 - 1957)
- Simón Rodríguez Development (Caracas, 1956)
- Altos de Curia Residential Estate (Caracas, 1954)
- School of Petroleum Engineering (Maracaibo, 1956)
Jesús Soto Museum
1960s
- La Salle Foundation (1961 - 1962)
- Caomita House (Caracas, 1962)
- House for Alejandro Otero (San Antonio de Los Altos, 1965)
- Plaza Estrella Building (Caracas, 1964)
- Venezuelan Pavilion for the Montreal
Expo (Montreal, Canada, 1967)
1970s
References
Carlos Raúl Villanueva (1980), Textos escogidos. Caracas :
Universidad Central de Venezuela, Facultad de Arquitectura y
Urbanismo.
External links
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