Modern Transitions: Carlos Raúl Villanueva, from French Urbanism to American Urbanism

Abstract

In a context of growing north americanization of Venezuela, Carlos Raúl Villanueva (1900-1975), who trained at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, developed in Caracas, between 1943 and 1945, the Redevelopment of "El Silencio". On that occasion, Villanueva organized the public space in line with the idea of the city promoted by the Monumental Plan of Caracas (1939), by frenchman Maurice Rotival (1892-1980). Subsequently, between 1952 and 1956, Villanueva, as director of the Banco Obrero technical room, developed the set of urbanizations of the Cerro Piloto Plan which, in the context of the idea of a fragmented city and suburbs, follows the spirit of the Regulatory Plan for Caracas (1951), by the californian Francis Violich (1911-2005). The imbalances and contradictions that would end up being expressed in Caracas, a city of hispanic origin, to which modernity would reach, first, via french urbanism and, later, in the form of north american urbanism, were the reason for Villanueva, in recent years of his life, he will never stop lamenting what he himself called the urban chaos of the city of Caracas.