Designed by Carlos Raúl Villanueva, completed 1977 Caracas, Venezuela
The Ciudad Universitaria of Caracas (City University of Caracas, also known as the
Universidad Central de Venezuela [UCV] or Central University of Venezuela), designed
by the Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, is regarded as the country’s most
important example of modernist architecture. Derived from Le Corbusier’s works, the
campus plan’s Venezuelaninflected organicism set a new standard for Venezuelan
architects. The “synthesis of the arts” it proposed has never been surpassed. Despite the
dilemma its association with the military government of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez
(1948–58) presented for artists working on the project, its success with both Venezuelan
elites and the international architectural community significantly influenced the course of
Venezuelan architecture.
Villanueva’s initial conception of the campus plan as well as early building designs
make use of monumental axes and symmetrical disposition of masses—elements that
betray his Beaux-Arts education. The University Hospital (1943), designed in the first
phase of construction from 1944 to 1949, demonstrates this traditional approach.
Villanueva modified the hospital’s facade later in an attempt to integrate it with the rest
of the campus; in subsequent stages of the design, both individual buildings and the
overall plan become more flexible and organic. For example, in the second phase of
construction (1950–52), Villanueva made the transition to a full-fledged modernism in
the Olympic Stadium (1950). Recalling the Mexican architect Felix Candela’s
experiments in reinforced concrete, the oval grandstand of the stadium resembles the
prow of a great ship; sustained by barely visible columns, its bulk seems to defy gravity.
Strong contrasts of tropical light and shadow play important roles in this and later
structures, and the architect’s use of reinforced concrete to mold forms reappears as well.
The necessity for covered spaces and walkways because of the camqueño tropical climate
became a source of invention for Villanueva at the UCV. Citing the need to shelter
students from the wind, rain, and sun, he covered the 1428-meter-long sidewalk that links
various zones of the campus with a canopy of reinforced concrete, supported by columns,
that appears to float above the ground. The covered sidewalk also acts as an orienting
path through the free-form ground plan of the campus and terminates in the physical and
spiritual center of the university, the Plaza Cubierta (Covered Plaza).
The Aula Magna (Amphitheater) and the Covered Plaza (third phase of construction,
1952–53) that surrounds it best embody the architect’s principles of the synthesis of the
arts, as well as his attempt to create an “outdoor museum” by integrating artworks and
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 506
structures with the landscape. The Covered Plaza, an enormous roof of reinforced
concrete, creates heavily shaded areas punctuated by light effects produced by bris -s oleil walls
cast in different patterns. Sculpture by Europeans Henri Laurens and Jean Arp, murals in
materials as diverse as ceramic, mosaic, aluminum, stone, bronze, and glass by Fernand
Léger, Antoine Pevsner, Victor Vasarely, and Venezuelans Mateo Manaure, Pascual
Navarro, and Carlos González Bogen, among others, punctuate the space and are grouped
so as to create smaller irregularly shaped areas under the canopy and just outside it. Many
of these works make use of strong, saturated colors, which are set off by a backdrop of
tropical foliage and bright sky.
Seen from above, the Aula Magna’s cone-shaped auditorium is emphasized by
repeating wing-shaped sections rising from the roofline in two tiers. The reference to
flight on the exterior is manifested more explicitly in the interior, specifically in the
acoustic panels designed by U.S. sculptor Alexander Calder, which he called Platillos
Voladores or Nubes Acústicas (Flying Saucers or Acoustic Clouds, 1953). Huge, rounded
shapes in various colors, attached to walls and ceilings, appear to float over the fixed
auditorium seats. Critics cite the resulting marriage of form and function as the sole
instance in which Villanueva achieved a synthesis of the arts at the university.
The School of Odontology (1957), from the fourth stage of construction (1954–58),
demonstrates an important step in the evolution of Villanueva’s designs for the campus.
Citing the library at the Ciudad Universitaria in Mexico City as failing to integrate art and
architecture because Mexican artist Juan O’Gorman’s murals were figurative in style and,
thus, mere decoration, Villanueva made use of polychromatic facades on the exterior of
this building (Policromía, by Omar Carreño). He also commissioned Alejandro Otero and
Oswaldo Vigas, among other artists, to design abstract murals in paint and mosaic for the
exteriors of other buildings.
Constructed during the petroleum boom of the 1950s and supported by a military
regime committed to renovating the capital city, the UCV played an important role in
advertising the success of the dictatorship in achieving its goals of order and progress.
Heralded in the Venezuelan press to this day as the jewel of Venezuelan architecture,
through the years its significance as an architectural site has superseded its original
political associations. Periodic calls are made in the press for its restoration, as its
buildings and artworks have suffered significant deterioration and misuse. Built for four
to five thousand students, the university today has an enrollment of over 50,000 and
covers an area of 204 hectares, or 504 acres.
The UCV’s influence on Venezuelan architecture, perhaps because of its audacity and
scope, has been diffuse. Its celebration of the Venezuelan landscape through the lens of
European modernism spawned no imitators, but it did legitimate modernism as a valid
style for public architecture. In addition, a major consequence of Villanueva’s synthesis
of the arts has been the proliferation of public art projects throughout the city: large-scale
art dominates the urban experience in Caracas. Freestanding sculptures and wall murals
in subway stations, alongside highways, in plaza centers, and in buildings transform the
city into a living exemplar of Villanueva’s “outdoor museum.”
International critics frequently compare Villanueva’s UCV with Le Corbusier’s
designs for Chandigarh and Lucio Costa’s for Brasilia, because of these projects’
similarities of scope and intention, but Villanueva’s style is regarded as less fully
realized. As one of the few extant examples of large-scale modernist experiments carried
Entries A–F 507
to fruition outside Europe, however, the UCV continues to be of interest to the
international architectural community.
CIUDAD UNIVERSITARIA CAMPUS AND STADIUM
Mexico City, Mexico
The Mexican National University, founded in 1553 by order of the Spanish emperor
Charles V, is the oldest university on the American continent. Institutes and colleges of
Entries A–F 503
the National University were located in the historical center of Mexico City, but in the
1940s, the structural problems of organizing the increasing academic activities led
Mexican politicians to commission plans for a new campus in the southern periphery of
the city. Inspired by Madrid’s university city of 1927 and by the tradition in the United
States of suburban campus and university planning, the Mexican planners designated a
seven-million-square-meter site of lava landscape at the Pedregal de San Angel for the
university city. In 1953, four centuries after its foundation, the entire National University
moved to Ciudad Universitaria.
The project of constructing a university city following contemporary urban planning
and architecture standards had high symbolic importance for the Mexican government
under President Miguel Alemán. Oil-exporting developing countries, such as Mexico,
Venezuela, and Iraq, hoped to make their economic progress visible by building huge
modern architectural projects for education. Although spatially different, the Mexican
university city shared political and architectural aims with Carlos Raúl Villanueva’s
master plan of 1950 for the University City in Caracas and provided the model for Walter
Gropius’s and The Architects Collaborative’s (TAC’s) design for the New University of
Baghdad, Iraq, in 1958.
The first urban plan for Ciudad Universitaria of 1946, by the architects Mario Pani and
Enrique del Moral, characterized by axial Beaux-Arts structures, was soon revised
because of the effect of the modern spatial concept of the UN headquarters in New York
and also because of pressure from architecture students around Teodoro González de
León. Together with José Luis Cuveas, a student of the former Bauhaus director and
emigrant Hannes Meyer, Pani and del Moral in 1949 presented the definitive urban
structure of Ciudad Universitaria. In a campus of 180 to 360 meters, the university
buildings were placed like isolated monuments in open spaces. In the southern zone, the
architects set sports and leisure installations, and west of the campus, separated by the
north-south axis of the broad In-surgentes Avenue, the stadium. Curved internal roads, an
idea of the Austrian-born architect Hermann Herrey, contrasted with the rectangular
structures of campus buildings and opened magnificent views to the lava-stone landscape.
Contemporary critics emphasized that this concept for the Ciudad Universitaria subtly
interpreted the topographic conditions, such as various levels of lava stones and sitespecific
vegetation. The grand open campus space, marked by huge horizontal and
vertical building volumes, reminded archaeologists of pre-Hispanic urban patterns.
Under the direction of the architect Carlos Lazo, a group of 150 Mexican architects,
most of them alumni or students, elaborated the designs for the 30 university buildings.
The outstanding buildings—Rectoría for the university’s president and the central
library—dominate the campus. Their cubic forms and vertical orientation contrast with
the low-rise buildings for the faculties of philosophy and architecture. At the eastern edge
of the central green campus, the tower of sciences marks the beginning of another
subdivision, for the faculties of medicine, chemistry, and law. The smallest building on
campus, the Pavilion of Cosmic Rays, was regarded as architecturally the most
interesting. Here, in 1951, Felix Candela with Jorge González Reyna constructed his first
shell building, which brought Mexico to the attention of international architecture
magazines.
One of the principal intentions of modern Mexican architects at that time was to
integrate artworks with the buildings to imbue International Style forms with national or
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 504
local icono-graphic elements. Juan O’Gorman’s Central Library shows all the
contradictory aspects of this “integración plástica.” The cubic high-rise is covered with a
mosaic containing different worldviews and scientific concepts, graphically expressed in
the manner of pre-Hispanic codices. The library’s facades serve as huge canvases but do
not integrate art and architecture. Other campus buildings show applied murals or
ornaments, as in David Alfaro Siqueiros’ relief mural at the Rectoría.
The most outstanding example of artistic intervention and structural integration into
the landscape is the University Stadium, used for the 1968 Olympics. Its conical, oval
form rises out of the surrounding lava rocks. Exterior walls are covered with rough, gray
lava stones, yielding at the central entrance to an unfinished mural by Diego Rivera
showing the development of sports from pre-Hispanic to modern times. For its
combination of dynamic forms and archaic material, the University Stadium was admired
worldwide as a model for site-specific entertainment architecture.
The Ciudad Universitaria and stadium complex forms claim a landmark of
international standing. Together with the neighboring luxurious Pedregal housing
development by Luis Barragán and Max Cetto, the Ciudad Universitaria adds ecological
and topographical aspects to the modern urban concept of open spaces. The immense
urban growth of Mexico City has, however, affected the Ciudad Universitaria. Originally
planned for a community of 25,000 students and academics, the campus serves about
300,000, reflecting the increasing population of Mexico City (3.5 million in the 1950s,
probably 20 million in 2000). New university satellites were planned in the 1970s and
1980s, among them the cultural center at the southern edge of Ciudad Universitaria.
There, the National Library in raw concrete and the research institutes in modular
functionalist forms are located between an open forum for contemporary sculpture and an
ecological reserve. The circular Espacio Escultorio, which reveals the geologic origins of
the site, was designed in 1978 by a group of Mexican artists under the direction of
Mathias Goeritz.
Despite all intentions to decentralize higher education in Mexico, Ciudad
Universitaria, with its dense concentration of science and culture, is still attractive and
therefore exceeds its intended capacity. Uncontrolled urban growth endangers the
generous open and green spaces of Ciudad Universitaria. The agenda for the 21st century
will require protection of its urban, architectural, and artistic concept not only as a
landmark but also as a lively space and as ecological compensation for the megalopolis.
The Mexican National University, founded in 1553 by order of the Spanish emperor
Charles V, is the oldest university on the American continent. Institutes and colleges of
Entries A–F 503
the National University were located in the historical center of Mexico City, but in the
1940s, the structural problems of organizing the increasing academic activities led
Mexican politicians to commission plans for a new campus in the southern periphery of
the city. Inspired by Madrid’s university city of 1927 and by the tradition in the United
States of suburban campus and university planning, the Mexican planners designated a
seven-million-square-meter site of lava landscape at the Pedregal de San Angel for the
university city. In 1953, four centuries after its foundation, the entire National University
moved to Ciudad Universitaria.
The project of constructing a university city following contemporary urban planning
and architecture standards had high symbolic importance for the Mexican government
under President Miguel Alemán. Oil-exporting developing countries, such as Mexico,
Venezuela, and Iraq, hoped to make their economic progress visible by building huge
modern architectural projects for education. Although spatially different, the Mexican
university city shared political and architectural aims with Carlos Raúl Villanueva’s
master plan of 1950 for the University City in Caracas and provided the model for Walter
Gropius’s and The Architects Collaborative’s (TAC’s) design for the New University of
Baghdad, Iraq, in 1958.
The first urban plan for Ciudad Universitaria of 1946, by the architects Mario Pani and
Enrique del Moral, characterized by axial Beaux-Arts structures, was soon revised
because of the effect of the modern spatial concept of the UN headquarters in New York
and also because of pressure from architecture students around Teodoro González de
León. Together with José Luis Cuveas, a student of the former Bauhaus director and
emigrant Hannes Meyer, Pani and del Moral in 1949 presented the definitive urban
structure of Ciudad Universitaria. In a campus of 180 to 360 meters, the university
buildings were placed like isolated monuments in open spaces. In the southern zone, the
architects set sports and leisure installations, and west of the campus, separated by the
north-south axis of the broad In-surgentes Avenue, the stadium. Curved internal roads, an
idea of the Austrian-born architect Hermann Herrey, contrasted with the rectangular
structures of campus buildings and opened magnificent views to the lava-stone landscape.
Contemporary critics emphasized that this concept for the Ciudad Universitaria subtly
interpreted the topographic conditions, such as various levels of lava stones and sitespecific
vegetation. The grand open campus space, marked by huge horizontal and
vertical building volumes, reminded archaeologists of pre-Hispanic urban patterns.
Under the direction of the architect Carlos Lazo, a group of 150 Mexican architects,
most of them alumni or students, elaborated the designs for the 30 university buildings.
The outstanding buildings—Rectoría for the university’s president and the central
library—dominate the campus. Their cubic forms and vertical orientation contrast with
the low-rise buildings for the faculties of philosophy and architecture. At the eastern edge
of the central green campus, the tower of sciences marks the beginning of another
subdivision, for the faculties of medicine, chemistry, and law. The smallest building on
campus, the Pavilion of Cosmic Rays, was regarded as architecturally the most
interesting. Here, in 1951, Felix Candela with Jorge González Reyna constructed his first
shell building, which brought Mexico to the attention of international architecture
magazines.
One of the principal intentions of modern Mexican architects at that time was to
integrate artworks with the buildings to imbue International Style forms with national or
Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 504
local icono-graphic elements. Juan O’Gorman’s Central Library shows all the
contradictory aspects of this “integración plástica.” The cubic high-rise is covered with a
mosaic containing different worldviews and scientific concepts, graphically expressed in
the manner of pre-Hispanic codices. The library’s facades serve as huge canvases but do
not integrate art and architecture. Other campus buildings show applied murals or
ornaments, as in David Alfaro Siqueiros’ relief mural at the Rectoría.
The most outstanding example of artistic intervention and structural integration into
the landscape is the University Stadium, used for the 1968 Olympics. Its conical, oval
form rises out of the surrounding lava rocks. Exterior walls are covered with rough, gray
lava stones, yielding at the central entrance to an unfinished mural by Diego Rivera
showing the development of sports from pre-Hispanic to modern times. For its
combination of dynamic forms and archaic material, the University Stadium was admired
worldwide as a model for site-specific entertainment architecture.
The Ciudad Universitaria and stadium complex forms claim a landmark of
international standing. Together with the neighboring luxurious Pedregal housing
development by Luis Barragán and Max Cetto, the Ciudad Universitaria adds ecological
and topographical aspects to the modern urban concept of open spaces. The immense
urban growth of Mexico City has, however, affected the Ciudad Universitaria. Originally
planned for a community of 25,000 students and academics, the campus serves about
300,000, reflecting the increasing population of Mexico City (3.5 million in the 1950s,
probably 20 million in 2000). New university satellites were planned in the 1970s and
1980s, among them the cultural center at the southern edge of Ciudad Universitaria.
There, the National Library in raw concrete and the research institutes in modular
functionalist forms are located between an open forum for contemporary sculpture and an
ecological reserve. The circular Espacio Escultorio, which reveals the geologic origins of
the site, was designed in 1978 by a group of Mexican artists under the direction of
Mathias Goeritz.
Despite all intentions to decentralize higher education in Mexico, Ciudad
Universitaria, with its dense concentration of science and culture, is still attractive and
therefore exceeds its intended capacity. Uncontrolled urban growth endangers the
generous open and green spaces of Ciudad Universitaria. The agenda for the 21st century
will require protection of its urban, architectural, and artistic concept not only as a
landmark but also as a lively space and as ecological compensation for the megalopolis.
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