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The show is a gem. It focuses on domestic design from six countries (Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Venezuela), produced between 1940 and 1980. Latin America had entered a period of transformation, industrial expansion and creativity. Across the region, design was becoming institutionalized as a profession, opening up new avenues, especially for women. — The New York Times
Critic Michael Kimmelman has heaped praise on the 'Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980' MoMA exhibition in a new piece for The New York Times. As we reported in December of last year, the show looks at the growth of modernism through an industrial and entrepreneurial... View full entry
A new interactive documentary from the BBC explores the Venezuelan shopping center that became one of the country's most notorious torture centers for political prisoners. Through interviews from ex-detainees, relatives, lawyers and human rights activists, the BBC aims to bring its mysterious... View full entry
The Broad announced today that it will present a new work from Venezuelan-born artist Carlos Cruz-Diez (b. 1923), in collaboration with the Cruz-Diez Art Foundation. Couleur Additive has been commissioned by The Broad as part of the Getty Initiative, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching... View full entry
Sometimes called a tropical Babel, the one-time symbol of the country’s progress wound up converted into a prison and, according to some of its former inmates, a torture center for political prisoners. — CityLab
The Helicoide's design was initiated in mid-fifties, the times of Venezuela's economic prosperity. Grandiose, ambitious and strange, the project proposed a first drive-through mall with over 300 stores, a car showroom, gas station, car wash and even a repair shop. However, the building's destiny... View full entry
Built in a scant ten days, “Proyecto Chacras” is described as “pop-up productive housing.” The 30 square meter home was designed by Natura Futura Arquitecture and Colectivo Cronopios out of donated materials and tools, with volunteer labor. Located in Chacras, Ecuador, it houses a family... View full entry
The thorny task of comparing crime rates across the world is tricky because legal interpretations vary. Sweden's definition of rape is not the same as America’s, for example. Murder however should be easier to record because there is an identifiable victim, something that can be counted. But the way in which this is done in poorer, often more corrupt countries makes truly comparable statistics hard to pin down. Where there are inefficient public health systems or police, it is even harder. — the Economist
"Latin American and Caribbean countries suffer disproportionately compared with elsewhere, mainly because of inequality, poor rule of law, impunity and corrupt institutions that are infiltrated by drug cartels. Only two countries outside the region feature on either chart, South Africa and the... View full entry
‘El mejor anuncio de la historia’, or ‘the best ad in history’ is a picture taken in February 2008, which neatly encapsulates several aspects of the city’s urban landscape: the formal, the informal and the promotional.
'[...]Around and in between the super bloques a carpet of slums has grown, an organism that now seems to bind the blocks together in some symbiotic relationship. These are the kind of hybrid forms that are developing in Latin American cities [...]’
— failedarchitecture.com
Related in the Archinect news:Venezuelan Government Evicts Residents From World's Tallest SlumWithout Housing Reform, is a "Tower of David" Coming to Your City?Housing mobility vs. America's growing slum problem View full entry
Andreína Contreras, a 26-year-old mother of two, lived until this week in the “Tower of David,” in Caracas, Venezuela, which has been described as the world’s tallest slum, because it is situated in an abandoned skyscraper.
She is among an estimated 1,150 families living in the tower who are to be removed and relocated permanently this week, seven years after the officially named Torre Confinanzas was first occupied as a result of Venezuela’s financial crisis...
— Vice
Venezuelan soldiers and officials began moving hundreds of families on Tuesday out of a half-built 45-story skyscraper that dominates the Caracas skyline and is thought to be the world's tallest slum. Residents from the "Tower of David” were going to new homes in the town of Cua, south of Caracas [...]. President Nicolas Maduro's government has not yet said what it will do with the tower, but one local newspaper reported Chinese banks were buying it to restore to its original purpose. — nbcnews.com
Previously:Iwan Baan presents TORRE DAVID / GRAN HORIZONTE in Los AngelesAnywhere but Here: Deserted Banking Empire turned Skyscraper SlumThe world's tallest slum: Rare look at an illegal ghetto in the sky View full entry
Welcome to the world’s tallest slum: poverty-ridden Venezuela’s Tower of David. Squatters took over this very unfinished 45-story skyscraper in the early 1990s, and they’ve been there ever since. The tower was originally intended to be a symbol of Caracas’ bright financial future, complete with a rooftop helipad, but construction stopped because of a banking crisis and the sudden death of the tower’s namesake, David Brillembourg. — vocativ.com
It was built for stockbrokers and bankers in their thousand dollar suits to make million dollar deals, but for nearly two decades it has held the less impressive title of the world’s tallest squat. Welcome to the Centro Financiero Confinanzas, more commonly known as the Torre David (the Tower of David) in Caracas, Venezuela, an unfinished skyscraper which has now been colonised by an ad hoc community of over 700 families. — messynessychic.com
It was built for stockbrokers and bankers in their thousand dollar suits to make million dollar deals, but for nearly two decades it has held the less impressive title of the world’s tallest squat. Welcome to the Centro Financiero Confinanzas, more commonly known as the Torre David (the Tower of David) in Caracas, Venezuela, an unfinished skyscraper which has now been colonised by an ad hoc community of over 700 families. — messynessychic.com
The proposal for a bike path system for Venezuela's capitol Caracas, designed by architects Andrea Hernández and Cruz Criollo, has won the first prize in the competition Metropolitan Transportation System, Caracas to Pedal. The best and most innovative proposals of this competition, which seeks to promote cycling in the city, were recently awarded by the Metropolitan Mayor of Caracas. — bustler.net