Caracas green city. A bridge between different realities

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C A R A C A S

G R E E N C I T Y

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C A R A C A S G R E E N C I T Y

A b r i d g e b e t w e e n d i f f e r e n t r e a l i t i e s

ARCHITECTURE MASTER THESIS

Samantha Rodríguez POLITECNICO DI MILANO December 19th of 2018 Supervisor Stefano Boeri Assistant supervisors Azzurra Muzzonigro Livia Shamir

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English

Venezuela’s capital city, Caracas, has a population of approximately 3,5 million people, and an index of 1 sqm/hab of public space, leaving the city way under the World’s Health Organization’s minimum establishment of 10 sqm/hab. There are many causes behind the current state of the city, from its historical foundation to environmental features, social, economic and governmental policies, and by analyzing each of these points in depth, it is possible to explain why Caracas is such a fragmented city, not only from a morphological perspective, but also in terms of social disparity. There are many parts to a city, and Caracas is a very complex one, with citizens that are in evident need of better conditions.

This thesis seeks to alleviate said problems with the proposal of a series of interventions on an urban scale, that could potentially change the way Caracas is perceived and lived, by creating the Experimental Hub, a more innovative type of organization that focuses on a different version of the city’s management. A city that communicates and works with and for the citizens, utilizing the Libertador avenue, located in the core of the city, and the areas immediate to it, as the catalyst that could spark a new urban network, a more inter-connected one that prioritizes public space, green areas and pedestrian accessibility, aspects that have been neglected for too long, in hopes to start a transformation from within, going from a city built on oil exploitation, to a greener one that values the importance of community, sustainability and preservation of the environment.

Italiano

Il capoluogo del Venezuela, Caracas, ha una popolazione di approssimativamente 3,5 milioni di abitanti, e un indice di 1 m²/hab di spazio pubblico, lasciando la città molto sotto il minimo di 10 m²/hab stabilito dall’Organizzazione Mondiale della Salute. Ci sono molte cause dietro lo stato attuale della città, dalla sua fondazione storica, alle caratteristiche ambientali, político-sociali, economiche e governative, e analizzando ogni punto in profondità, è possibile spiegare perché Caracas sia una città così frammentata, non solo da una prospettiva morfologica, ma anche in termini di disparità sociale. Ci sono tante parti in una città, e Caracas è una citt’ molto complessa, con cittadini che hanno un evidente bisogno di condizioni migliori.

Questa tesi cerca di alleviare questi problemi con una proposta di una serie di interventi a scala urbana, che potranno potenzialmente cambiare il modo in cui Caracas è percepita e vissuta, creando l’Experimental Hub, un tipo d’organizzazione più innovativa, focalizzata su una versione diversa della gestione della città. Una città che communica e lavora con e per i cittadini, utilizzando l’Avenida Libertador, localizzata nel nucleo della città, e le sue zoni immediate, come catalizzatore per iniziare una nuova rete urbana, più interconnessa che prioritizzi spazio pubblico, aree verdi e accessibilità pedonale, aspetti che sono stati trascurati per molto tempo, con la speranza di cominciare la trasformazione da dentro, partendo da una città costruita sullo sfruttamento del petrolio, ad una più verde, che valorizza l’importanza della comunità, sostenibilità e preservazione dell’ambiente.

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Starting from the moment in which Caracas was founded and fast-forwarding to this time and era, social inequality and segregation (both physical and social) have been a prevalent factor in the history of the city. Issues such as lack of urban planning on a metropolitan scale, overgrowth of barrios, poor pedestrian connections, rapid increase in population and uncontrolled expansion of the city had led to the current state that Caracas deals, a city that has been urbanized to exhaustion that nowadays cannot give enough public space to its inhabitants, where the marginalized population becomes the most affected. This absence of public space and green areas has represented a fundamental problem in the past decades, becoming quite evident in the most recent years. According to the late Metropolitan Municipality of Caracas, the city has less than 1 square meter of public space per inhabitant, when the minimum required for a healthy city, suggested by the World Health Organization, should be around 10, leaving Caracas way below the standard, and the problem only persists when it is taken into consideration the current state of the existing public spaces. This issue only highlights one of the major problems that Caracas stands for its citizens, because it was thought and developed to be best lived with an automobile, leaving pedestrian connections to a second (or almost nonexistent) place.

Seeking to mitigate the problem and keeping in mind the absence of available spaces to project and build within the city, a possible solution would be to re-use or give an alternate or added purpose to the existing ones with the main goal of bettering the perception of the city and how it is lived, to overall improve the quality of life of the people of Caracas, independently from their social status. To go from a morphologically and socially fragmented city, to a more sustainable and interconnected one.

Caracas has many complexities and the current problems that it faces are a result from several historical, social, political and economic factors, therefore searching for a universal solution to all of them would not just be naïve, but also disingenuous. This type of urban and architectural intervention has its limits, for what it is important to point out that for a change to be successful, there must be a radical shift in education and governmental and professional interaction. Participation of the population is also key, so when the project is concluded they not only receive a finalized product, but have contributed to the ideation and development of the new changes that the city will go through, which is the best way to make the citizens effectively feel like they belong and are part of that change.

This thesis proposes a new epicenter for urban development from a cultural and environmental point of view. An experimental hub that serves as a meeting point where citizens, government, private sector, students and professionals can work altogether to idealize and materialize a better city, where the change comes from within and is not imposed. A generator of new projects that operates for and with the public, validating their needs. A place where there is constant dialogue, acknowledgement and collaboration from the distinct parts that conform society.

A series of interventions would sprout from this experimental hub, starting from the most influential one, the Linear Park that serves as a crucial pedestrian connection. The idea to create this kind of park on top of an avenue that works as an important vehicular path in the East-West axis, originates from the need to transform the urban network so it is more in favor of

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the pedestrian, historically and physically left as an afterthought, displacing the relevance and constant presence of the automobile, which has represented a barrier between citizens.

These operations would be just the beginning, the catalysts of the urban transformation. It is impossible to speak of connecting the city without thinking of interventions in different scales that guarantee said connection, that is why the main focus of the project consists of proposing a new urban network, with renovated sidewalks that relate to important existing buildings, new streets that connect the Linear Park to points of relevance, new pedestrian bridges that break the boundary of the river and allow a path from the Southern neighborhoods, the re-purpose of areas surrounding the river, as well as the long needed re-naturalization of it, opening the Golf course in the middle of the city and equipping it so it can be a proper public park and finally, re-using lots in either poor or abandoned state as new public spaces with buildings of cultural character. But still, this could only be the start-up of a new way to re-think the city, that can most definitely be expanded through-out the urban network in the future, optimizing existing places and integrating them in a more cohesive manner, preventing the fragmentation that is sought to be relieved.

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INDEX

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 THE VALLEY OF CARACAS 1.1 Environmental limits

El Ávila mountain

El Guaire river

1.2 Historical morphology Colonial period (1567-1863)

State urbanism period (1863-1926) Expansion period (1926-1961) Recuperation period (1962-1971) Caracas the linear city

1.3 Barrios: the growth of the informal city Rapid development of the city

National migration

1.4 Caracas, the valley that filled up

CHAPTER 2 THE AFTERMATH 2.1 Social inequality

The two Caracas - East vs. West Criminality

Case study: Parques Biblioteca in Medellín, Colombia 2.2 Urban space crisis

Disproportionate distribution of parks in the city Malls as the new urban space

2.3 Venezuela, the oil country 2.4 Caracas, the fragmented city

5 6 12 12 12 16 16 18 20 24 26 29 32 32 34 38 38 40 42 44 48 48 50 52

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CHAPTER 3 LIBERTADOR AVENUE, THE CONNECTOR 3.1 Cultural heritage of the city

3.2 Challenges and opportunities Limits

Public space

Abandoned areas

3.3 Objectives: the avenue as a bridge between different realities

CHAPTER 4 PROJECT - CARACAS GREEN CITY A bridge between different realities

4.1 Actions

Connect

I. Experimental Hub

II. Linear Park

Expand

III. Renovation of sidewalks IV. New pedestrian streets V. New pedestrian bridges Re-use

VI. Re-naturalization of El Guaire river

VII. Re-purpose of The Country Club Golf course VIII. New public spaces

4.2 Temporal strategy

4.3 Actors and management

BIBLIOGRAPHY 58 59 78 79 79 83 86 90 92 99 117 123 123 128 130 133 145 154 159

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CHAPTER 1

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ENVIRONMENTAL LIMITS

The city of Caracas was formally founded in 1567 by Diego de Losada, a Spanish conqueror, who ordered the re-built of the town of San Francisco, then depopulated and previously founded by Francisco Fajardo in 1560, a mestizo born in Venezuela who worked with the indigenous population native to the valley. The city was to be named Santiago de León de Caracas (name still used in the present), using as place name “Caracas” to honor the tribe Los Caracas, who inhabited the valley.

Caracas represented a strategic base from a military perspective for the future conquest of the territory, mostly because of its condition of valley with El Ávila mountain in the North, an impenetrable natural barrier between the city and the Caribbean Sea, avoiding raids from pirates or any other hostile group. It also had many logistic benefits such as fertile land, access to clean water on its South with El Guaire river, and due to its altitude (for its most part between 850 and 1000 meters above sea level) the opportunity to live in a generous temperate tropical climate. The topography of the valley defined a great challenge when it came to the development of Caracas. After being founded in this particular geographical condition, the urban expansion was very limited by the topography, first occupying the most profitable lands with lighter slopes and then moving to the more moderate ones, demonstrating the reduction in land that was the most ideal for urban development by being forced to utilize areas that came with a lot of challenges for urban occupation and connection.

El Ávila mountain

These environmental factors greatly dictated the development of the city, and still to this day form part of the daily lives of Caraquenians. El Ávila mountain (originally named Waraira Repano by the tribe Los Caribes, meaning “big mountain range”), commonly known as the “vegetal lung” of the city and also the physical border between Caracas and the sea, has an altitude that ranges from 120 to 2765 meters above the sea level at its highest peak, therefore providing with a vast spectrum of species in flora, fauna, and landscapes that work in function of the different climate and conditions along the mountain range. It was declared as a National Park in December of 1958, with the hopes of preserving this mountain with such rich features in terms of nature, and ever since then, El Ávila has served as the most important and significant contact with nature that the citizens have.

El Guaire river

Besides El Ávila, historically, El Guaire river has also been a landmark and an important factor in the urban evolution of Caracas. Dividing the valley with a total length of 72 km, the river crosses the city from South to East and has three main tributaries, named Caroata, Catuche and Anauco. The river has been associated with many different activities since colonial times, as well as being the main provider of clean water to the city up until the beginning of the Twentieth century, when Caracas was supplied with a sewage system and it was decided to use the river as the main receptor of the residual waters. In present days, the pollution level of the river is alarming, considering that most of its initial fauna is now inexistent, and it would be impossible to think of

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El Guaire river and its tributaries along the valley

it as an inhabitable place.

After the colonial city was founded, the urban expansion was limited by the presence of the river. Technological advances restrained said development, so it was not until 1772 that the first two bridges that connected to other areas appeared, finally surpassing the physical boundary, and from there, the amount of them slowly increased. By 1906 the number of bridges was 43, clearly showing that the river was no longer a barrier for urban expansion, but that it remained a determining factor of the urban form.

In the present, even though it is possible to cross the river, most of those connections are thought and built for vehicular purpose, leaving pedestrians with very few and troubled solutions to go from one side of the water to the other, prevailing as one of the consequences of the way the city was urbanized during the Twentieth century.

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HISTORICAL MORPHOLOGY OF CARACAS

The city of Caracas, founded by Diego de Lozada on the 25th of July of 1567, rapidly becomes the capital of the Province and then the capital of the command of the military district. The conquest of the valley of Caracas surfaces during that period as a necessity for the growth of the border and the internal stability, and from there the domain of the valley and foundation of the city as a new point for the advance in the colonization. The limits were tangible, in the North with El Ávila mountain, in the South with El Guaire river, in the East with the Catuche tributary and finally in the West with the Caroata one.

In order to refer to the process of urban development of Caracas, and its implications in the Central Area, their historical precedents that in one way or another helped in the configuration of the city, it is important to relate certain periods with the cases and facts that were expressed in their time.

Colonial period (1567-1863)

During these three hundred years the urban network was defined and settled in what today is the Central Area of Caracas, preserving the damero form that the Spanish conquerors used to determine the spatiality of the city, with buildings of no more than two stories and the characteristic patio configuration. The rest of the valley remained mostly for coffee and sugar cane plantations. The natural environment of the valley represented an expansion barrier until the mid-Eighteenth century.

The expansion of Caracas had happened in different levels of intensity. During the first two hundred years after its foundation in 1567, the city increases its extension 5,3 times, and then it decreases its expansion during the last one hundred years by only incrementing its surface 2,4 times. As these three hundred years passed by, the main indicator of the ability to expand the city was the construction of bridges on top of water courses, in which the presence of El Guaire river and its tributaries was one of the main conditions that were considered for the foundation of the city, according to the general dispositions established by the Spanish colonization in America. By 1772, the city only had two bridges, one over the Caroata tributary and another over the Catuche one, and by 1801 there were already five more, further expanding the city.

With this in mind, it is valid to say that the expansion of the city truly began after the first construction of bridges that crossed the natural environment, when the urban growth reached 200% from 1772 to 1801, compared with only 43% between 1578 and 1772. The bridge turned into an important factor in the expansion of the urban occupation that was done fundamentally crossing the water courses. The rigid social structure based on race, from whites to “indians” and slaves, and the lack of a leading social class with industrial skills represented an obstacle for development. On the other hand, the city was greatly affected by the crisis of the colonial society at the end of the Eighteenth century, which finalized in the war for independency on the 19th of April of 1810, that ended up having its own crisis with the implantation of the Venezuelan society. An earthquake devastated the city in 1812, slowing the rate of development, and making it so Caracas remained with most of the same features as the colonial city since until the last third of the Nineteenth century.

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Foundational plan. 1578

Caracas’ city plans . 1775

Image source: (Top) El plano fundacional de Caracas GASPARINI, Graziano (Bottom) Archive from Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte

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Although the foundation of Caracas had a significant role in the consolidation of the Spanish conquest, their quality of life was always precarious, with epidemies, scarcity in resources, pirate attacks and earthquakes. Apart from this, there was another important obstacle that the city had to face, and that was its isolation in regard to the rest of the territory up until the Twentieth century.

By the year 1850, the streets where surfaced, more bridges were built and the Santa Lucía railway was opened, which crossed the middle of the valley, passing through Sabana Grande, and a road that connected to La Guaira. It was during this time that Caracas was able to accentuate its relations with the rest of the country, especially in the commercial field, even though the state of isolation was not greatly modified, but it was improved with the unity of Caracas - La Guaira, a port city, crossing El Ávila North of Caracas, that is in direct contact with the Caribbean sea. This road was mainly used for transportation of exported and imported products, and so Caracas developed into a consumption and redistribution market.

State urbanism period (1863-1926)

After the triumph of the revolution and installation of the Republic with the Venezuelan society, a new chapter begins for the city and the country. The measures in economic, administrative and socio-cultural terms trigger structures with a wider national range and Caracas takes importance in the project of unifying the nation as a step for further development, increasing its influence, especially with the effort in construction of communication ways to cease the country from isolation.

Unprecedented constructions were built in the city, which modernized the traditional urban structures as well as their customs. Squares, avenues, railways, roads and bridges were added to the city’s infrastructure, and with the laicization of the state, product of the intervention of the government, encouraged a change in the traditions of the city. Similarly, there was a significant effort in the cultural sphere to strengthen the national conscious, with the cult to national heroes, commemoration of patriotic dates, diffusion of the public instruction and the constitution. In 1883, the railroad between Caracas and La Guaira was inaugurated and the first attempt in electric illumination. The government’s action in terms of modernization of the city only reached the urban core, without many significative changes in the traditional social structure. Caracas represented its importance in the unification a structural change of the country, as an important role in the development and growth of the nation.

After this period, Caracas had an evident halt in terms of public works (bridges, squares, buildings). Until the appearance of a new urbanization, El Paraíso, the first to break the traditional damero

español scheme. It was also the period for extensive urban programs, such as railways, sewage,

public street lightning, squares and institutional and governmental buildings. The pre-oil period of Caracas was framed by modesty in the physical aspect, with simple constructive techniques, which were a clear reflection of the economy that predominated in that time, however there was an admirable harmony in terms of urban space and buildings considering how little resources were available.

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Caracas’ city plans . 1911

Image source: RAZETTI, R. Archive from Biblioteca Nacional de Venezuela

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Expansion period (1926-1961)

After the end of the first World War, the use of cars, especially in the United States, expanded rapidly, making the oil the first energetic source on a global scale. This historical event, summed with the crisis in the export agriculture of that time, coffee and cocoa, event that explains the fall and loss of importance of export agriculture in the worldwide crisis of 1929, and oil exportation takes place as the main and only type of market and source of income in the country. This will conform the framework that gives space to the urban Venezuela, as a result of the income from the resources coming from the oil exploitation that were generated in the country. For the first time in its history, Venezuela loses its condition of a precarious economy in order to manage a sudden wealth, plentiful and continuous, that was left in the hands of the State. The oil-based income allowed an increase in resources for the State to use in public works, with direct consequences in the growth of population, spatial mobility and distribution of employment. In the same way, there is an evident influence in the demographic concentration in urban areas and cities, which caused a great impact in terms of migratory processes and attraction generated in the urban investments.

The rapid increase of urban population due to the discovery of oil wells at the beginning of the Twentieth century (from 135253 to 786863 habitants in only forty years) demanded more appropriation of land for urban development within the city. Two main actors were the leaders during this phase of urban expansion, the private initiative developers and the State counterpart, the Banco Obrero, or “Labor Bank”.

In this transition period, where the city begins to experiment fundamental changes, product of the new oil-based market, the government was mainly dedicated to their production mode, and so the Caraquenian bourgeoise started to take advantage in the speculation of urban land and financial operations without major risks. In this way, since 1926, the East of Caracas is urbanized by the private sector. The private initiative had as main objective the enrichment through alienation of plots. They were conformed by civil associations that took the name of Sindicatos Urbanizadores, or Urbanizing Unions. With the support of the government, they bought and parceled up, in an anarchic manner, plot extensions despite whether they were adjacent or distanced from the city, always maintaining as a goal the opportunity of economic performance and efficiency. Most of the residential neighborhoods on the East were oriented to a market of people with high income, such as La Florida, El Country Club, Campo Alegre, Los Palos Grandes, while the first invasions of land by the marginalized population took place, creating barrios in Catia and San Agustín, peripheric to the central area.

Parallel to this urban expansion, the Banco Obrero had a much different approach when it came to urbanize the city. They had a revolutionary vision for their time, with basic postulates that are still valid. Their main objectives where to meet the deficit of housing for the working class, with dwellings that had to be affordable without lacking in efficiency and adequate design. Created in 1928, their actions were limited to the capital of the State, their urban solutions were adapted to the features of the city and the localization of their neighborhoods depended on the supply of empty lots within the city or around the urban periphery.

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Image source: Archive from Architectural Design Magazine 1900

1932

1941

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In 1939, the department of engineering was created with Carlos Raúl Villanueva as its director, it was during this period that the concept of housing acquires a new dimension. The Banco Obrero planned housing complexes for large family groups of lower income (from 6 to 10 people) carefully studying their type of user and provided them of credit for a long term so the apartments were more accessible. Roads were reduced to a minimum and the buildings were implanted so they could achieve a larger density. However, most of the land that was available to be used was located West to the city, in the limits of the natural urban growth, while being the receptors of a large amount of population, product from the migratory processes.

All of these phenomena created a very expanded city, but very poorly integrated, with discontinuous spaces between prosperity and misery, which expressed the contradictions of the capitalist development. The significant contrast between wealth and poverty that framed the landscape of the city, with the lack of urban infrastructure.

Nonetheless, there were attempts to better organize the city. Caracas begins with a new chapter in its life. There is an interest for diverse urbanistic studies and so new organisms are created to attend to these matters, bearing in mind the recent history of the capital, such as the case of the Dirección de Urbanismo del Distrito Federal (Urban Planning Management of the Federal District), created in 1937. Henri Prost, Jacques Lambert and Maurice Rotival, French urbanists and architects, were hired, so they could prepare the Plan Rector de Caracas (Guiding Plan of Caracas), officially named “Plan Monumental de Caracas” (Monumental Plan of Caracas). It was important to systemize the progressive physical expansion, proper distribution of the use of land and rationalize the space. With all of this, the concept of the avenue took a significant role. The final architectural and urbanist project was presented in 1939, with the proposal of the Monumental Avenue, with a new axis that structured the project. This avenue was complemented with a series of squares and buildings to be implanted in the structure of the initial and traditional urban network of the city, with an expansion in areas that required so. An avenue that was extended between the two most important parks in the city for its time, El Calvario and Los Caobos. The road system for Caracas proposed in this plan, were based on a North-South, East-West scheme, which gave more importance to the colonial core and sought connection between the newly developed areas in the city, while using public spaces and monumental buildings as a way to support this new structure. However, this Monumental Plan never materialized. It did leave a mark in the city, serving as an important reference for future urban plans.

From 1950 to 1961 the changes occur in a lower amount of time, the population doubles itself under a decade, and an extraordinary manifestation of growth and transformation is shown. The first significant event is the creation of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas in 1950, in which the city, in terms of governmental statistics, is defined by the Libertador department, and the Chacao, Los Dos Caminos, Petare and El Hatillo municipalities. The State acts in terms of urbanism and housing for the marginalized population, with the Banco Obrero and the creation, in 1951, of the Plan Regulador de Caracas (Regulating Plan of Caracas), which took inspiration if the Monumental Plan by Maurice Rotival and modified the road structure, with the appearance of new arteries that overlapped the rectangular network of the city center

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Image source: Archive from Revista Municipal del Distrito Federal Monumental Plan of Caracas 1939

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The formulation of the Regulating Plan favored the important concentration in Caracas. Its impact in the urban structure and dynamic is undeniable, with a road network that served as an expansion and densification axis for the following decades, such as the Francisco de Miranda Avenue, the Bolívar Avenue, finalizing in the Centro Simón Bolívar, as an expression of a modern joint urbanist concept, the Mexico and Andrés Bello Avenues, the Libertador Avenue, serving as a main path for the East-West axis, the Sucre Avenue and the Francisco Fajardo and Caracas - La Guaira highways. As well as the project for many other roads that would be built in the following years that would allow to change the reticular pattern of the damero español, to the model of linear city that is extended in favor of automobile circulation, of modernist inspiration. Great part of the commercial activity was gathered in Sabana Grande, and the vehicular property reached higher rates, so the construction of express lines and bridges on different levels gave the city a more dynamic aspect. Private investors took to construction and urbanization of empty areas, and the speculation of land only persisted, ending in the economic crisis of 1961. It was a period with an elevated housing deficit that only worsened with the constant internal migrations, leading to a high housing demand for short, medium and long term.

Recuperation period (1962-1971)

During these years there was a shift in the process for public housing, with more standardization and rationalization in the design of the dwellings and land use, in order to ease mass production. The public sector carried out urban roadway and highway projects of considerable importance to ensure automobile connection, and public works such as the Maiquetía Airport, which would serve Caracas, and the Metro system.

There was advancement in the study of city planning and these actions were reflected in the future implications of urban expansion and development. It is also important to note than in just a decade the population of the city reached two million, roughly doubling the initial amount of people, exemplifying that the internal migrations were far from stabilized, furthering the need for affordable housing. The private sector, on the other hand, planned and built apartments, offices and industries with new design and performance criteria, which resulted in the appearance of new modern shopping centers.

The main industrial areas were located at the periphery of the city, in lots adjacent to express lines, while other minor formations were developed in sectors in which the residential activity appears mixed with comer, workshops, warehouses and industrial plants.

The intensification of the expansion in the city could be considered a direct product of the measures that were taken from the Plan Regulador in 1951. The residential use conforms 43% of the total land use of the city, which is divided, at the same time, in: Single family homes, determined by the amount of income, therefore, family groups with high income are located to the Eastern and South-Eastern parts of the city, in neighborhoods like Prados del Este, Las Mercedes, El Rosal, Altamira, which are zones with a low slope and heavily arborized. The single-family homes for groups with lower income were located to the West and South of the Central

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1920

970 Has. developed 19412900 Has. developed

1950

1920

970 Has. developed

1941

2900 Has. developed

1950

1920

1950

4200 Has. developed

1971

13000 Has. developed 1920

1950

4200 Has. developed

1971

13000 Has. developed

Data source: Sala de Modelación Ambiental, CENAMB Occupation of the valley

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Area, such as El Valle, Cementerio, San Agustín, Pérez Bonalde. The multifamily housing is mainly located peripheric and within the most important transportation corridors and areas of multiple activities. The expansion of the city has transformed the single-family home in multifamily housing, especially in those areas where these main corridors are present. Los Palos Grandes, Chuao, Chacao and La California are perfect examples of this transformation, while other developments to the West, such as 23 de Enero, Propatria and La Candelaria to the West. The percentage of multifamily housing in the Metropolitan Area of Caracas by the year 1966 reaches 41,68%. However, the non-controlled housing, the informal houses in the barrios, are rapidly increasing in areas such as Petare, Antímano, Caricuao, El Valle, Catia and San Agustín, reaching 11,2% of the total amount of type of housing in the city.

Caracas the linear city

The concept of the Linear City was first presented in 1885 by the Spanish urbanist Arturo Soria y Mata. It was meant to serve the purpose to be the link and connection between the traditional cities.

It was an alternative to decongest the traditional nuclear cities and recuperate a kind of urbanism based on dignity, individualism and contact with nature. An elongated city that was built on both sides of a main road or central avenue. His utopic aim was to utilize the linear cities as a way circumvallate the capital of Spain, Madrid, uniting, in a progressive way, the different urban cores through main avenues and urbanized lots along them.

The city of Caracas was, coincidentally, urbanized following a similar approach. Where the foundational city was connected with other urban cores along the valley through railways and main roads. Progressively, more urbanized areas started to appear along these main axis, joining all of the cores and merging them to what Caracas is today.

The configuration of valley, long and narrow, forces a linear development. However, three entrances to minor valleys located West, South and East produce a peculiar morphology made of pronounced hills that follow El Guaire river. Meanwhile the valley extends in the East-West axis by 20 kilometers, from Catia to Petare. In this urban line with a low slope are concentrated great part of the population and main activities of the city. The configuration of openings and elongated valleys close to one another, with service sub-centers, while it did not compete with the urban center, they constituted areas where activities were carried out on a smaller scale. This discontinuous and very fragmented structure by geographic accidents leaves the Southern and Western sectors without a direct communication between the developed areas, with the exception of existing highways, which provided an indirect and long-distance way to travel to the center and inter-urban areas.

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Image source: (Edited) NEGRON, M. La Planificación Urbana Local y el Contexto Caracas’ city plans . 1967

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Growth of the metropolitan area via its main axis

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BARRIOS

THE GROWTH OF THE INFORMAL CITY

By the end of the Nineteenth century and beginning of the Twentieth, the historical center of Caracas undergoes changes in use of land in order to leave room for other type of activities apart from residential, such as administrative, commercial, and institutional. At the same time, the oil exploitation produced an unprecedented economic growth, which lead to progress expressed in modernity and urban expansion. This urban development came in fast and without extensive planification from a metropolitan scale, all while the barrios continued to increase, spontaneously and illegally in peripheric areas of the valley.

Most of the road infrastructure, housing and stable edifications of Caracas by the end of the Nineteenth century, where developed in areas with low gradients in the valley, found in the historical center. However, there were already the first informal settlements with precarious housing, self-produced by poor families whose needs where not met by the market of that time, and with a great majority of population that had migrated from the countryside of Venezuela. The first decades of the Twentieth century radically changed the way of life for most Venezuelans. While for some, the oil exploitation and economic transformation, came with financial growth, working opportunities, exponential increase and expansion on the real estate market, for others represented a much more complex and unfortunate reality. The abandonment of an agriculture-based economy, to be replaced with an oil exploitation one, forced families that lived on the countryside to flee in order to aspire for a better livelihood. This migration process only persisted throughout the Twentieth and Twenty First centuries, when more a more families opted to move the capital city, looking for a better life outside of poverty. However, the reality they initially had to face once in those urban areas was much more different from what they anticipated. The formation of the barrios results from the working class with a low income, that finds in the self-produced settlements the needs that could not be met in the real estate market. They started with invasions of land and empty lots, a response that only shows how much this marginalized population were in need and not considered by the pertinent entities.

The people that see themselves in a barrio have to start to build their houses with little resources. Most of their first settlements are built with construction materials that have a more temporary or provisional purpose, such as wood, cardboard and zinc. However, there are always aspirations to turn that house into a solid one, a home that can expand. The territorial base in which these settlements are hosted, usually, does not belong to the user. In most cases, it is land that has been invaded and that can be taken away in any given moment. Even though there is great risk of this happening, of the potential loss of an inversion in a land that does not belong to them, the barrio habitant does not have a better option, but to proceed under these circumstances. These urban settlements have precarious urbanization features, which manifest with various types of insufficiency. They are present in both the individual house, and their urban environment. There is lack of proper services that create basic infrastructure networks. There is also the legal aspect, since the barrios are formed as a product of public and private lands, which leads to little to no security to their users.

Up until the fifties, it was believed by urbanists and specialists that the barrios where an urban problem that could be reversed. Using as a premise the housing deficit, their solution was to

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urbanize more using empty lots and to continue to expand the urban network. However, with time it was proven that this reverse hypothesis became impossible to fulfill. The barrios only continued to grow, appropriating more land along the geography of the valley, taking advantage of areas with high gradients that were not conditioned for urban development, not where they profitable for the housing market.

The Banco Obrero, a State organism that urbanized and settled social housing in a good part of the city, was one of the main actors in the attempt to eliminate or control the growth of the barrios, with the creation of super-blocks, in neighborhoods such as 23 de Enero and Simón Rodríguez, a modernist approach based on functionality and optimization of space. Nonetheless, the efforts from part of the State to eradicate the barrios and reallocate their habitants only continued to be insufficient. The situation was often oversimplified with it just being a matter of housing deficit, without taking into account all the social, cultural and economic causes behind this phenomenon.

The official acknowledgement of the non-reversible existence of uncontrolled barrios that permeated the city took place in the eighties, with a series of actions that took a different approach and tried to condition these settlements, but even though there seemed to be an intention to solve that situation, often, the interventions from the State’s organisms are directed towards “embellish” them, instead of providing with proper equipment and services, by applying frieze and paint to their external walls. Almost like trying to make their presence more friendly and digestible for the visitor or the observer, masking the inequality in the city.

Nowadays, it is estimated that 51% of the total population of Caracas live in barrios, creating a duality between two different types of urban morphology, between the formal city and the spontaneous one. They have a clear deficit in terms of security and physical infrastructure, with residual public spaces and houses without a proper structural system, vulnerable to natural occurrences like storms, landslides and earthquakes. There are clear obstacles when it comes to the juridical regularization of land possession. One is the State’s preference to give priority to the dotation of urban equipment, services and transportation instead of regularization, as well as the country’s confusing laws on land property, the temporary nature of the urban territories that are occupied by the barrios, their peculiarities in morphology and absence of land registry. The habitants of the barrios have accepted and conformed to their legal status, resorting to a deeper sense of community that allows them to create a sense of belonging.

The barrio is an undeniable reality in the city of Caracas. Its existence should be accepted, not deny its role as part of the city, a part that requires immediate solutions, since the persistent rejection attitude towards it has been the main source of all the precarious conditions that characterize it. At the same time, said conditions have developed in their habitants a potential communitarian value.

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Formal city

Informal city

Data source: Enlace Arquitectura CABA - Cartografía de los barrios de Caracas

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Rapid development of the city

The expansion of Caracas has varied in intensity since its foundation. During the first two hundred years, the city increases its extension 5,3 times, then, until the beginning of the Twentieth century it followed a steadier expansion, only increasing its surface 2,4 times in 134 years. The urban development during these three hundred and fifty years was greatly confined by the natural environment, and it could only be surpassed with the construction of bridges on top of water courses.

The discovery of oil wells and the economic rise of the country dramatically changed the pace in which the city was being urbanized. In only 14 years, from 1906 to 1920, the urban area increased in 420 Ha., duplicating its size. During the Twentieth century, the city began a process of overflow of the urban network towards the rest of the valley. From 1920 to 1940, the expansion rate triples itself with a tendency that only continues to intensify. From 1950 to 1971 the maximum rate was recorded, with an expansion that tripled the previous one. This last period had a lot of examples of territorial and urban management policies, such as the creation of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas, main roads and avenues, the Central University of Venezuela campus, and other developments of military and public program.

By the end of 1994, the tendency of expansion had decreased in 35%, mostly due to the fact that the profitable, conditioned and adequate lands for urbanization had been depleted by the end of the 1970’s, leaving very small to no room for further expansion within the valley.

National migration

The Twentieth century was the century of drastic change in the history of Venezuela. Oil exploitation transformed the national economy and modified the traditional way of land occupation, replacing what was once an economy based on agriculture. This change, at the same time, led to massive migration movements such as the exodus from the countryside to the main urbanized cities. The concentration of urban population increased exponentially, especially along the Northern coast-highlands of Venezuela. All the changes in economy during these first decades fomented the historical loss of rural population and the exponential urban growth, principally in Caracas, for it was the capital city. The oil-based activity also generated new attraction poles that brought direction to the migratory currents.

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POPULATION GROWTH Venezuela Caracas 25 000 000 20 000 000 15 000 000 10 000 000 5 000 000 1579 1774 1816 1850 1873 1891 1920 1926 1936 1941 1950 1961 1971 1981 1990 Caracas Maracay Valencia Los Barcelona Maturín Ciudad Bolívar Puerto Ayacucho San Cristóbal Maracaibo Barquisimeto Coro Data source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) National migration in Venezuela through the years

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CARACAS

THE VALLEY THAT FILLED UP

There is only so much room available in a glass when water is poured into it. Similarly, there is only so much land to be used inside a valley. What was once a city defined and confined by a ten by ten damero colonial, is now a metropolis with no more possibility to expand.

The economic shift in the country, national migrations and their consequently self-produced settlements, urbanizing policies and plans, have all contributed to the current urban form of Caracas, a city that has been urbanized to exhaustion. With a high density in population, of 10 875 hab/km2, and poor urban planning, the city is often described as chaotic, with serious problems in terms of public transportation, public spaces, road management, maintenance, water supply and electricity.

Nowadays the city of Caracas is the result of an urban development process that has been happening with different intensity levels. The first three centuries had a very slow development, but since the beginning of the Twentieth century up until the 80s it increased exponentially. In only seventy years, the city expanded itself reaching ten times its initial size. This urban expansion was able to be carried out because of the unprecedented wealth that the oil exploitation generated to the country, which allowed the process to urbanize the city, bettering the conditions of their citizens. This shift in the economy and the new urban environment called for a migration process from the countryside to the new urban areas that would radically change the city.

Caracas was still a colonial city during the first years of the Twentieth century, with a population of 100 thousand inhabitants, mostly agriculture based and with a steady, but slow demographic growth. Then, the massive urban occupation began by the mid-20s, when Venezuela was going through one of the most crucial moments in its history, passing from a rural society to a modern urban society based on the oil industry. The ascending economy caused the eventual migration of the rural population, from the country side to the cities, where the all the economic profit was invested in hospitals, schools, housing and roads. With this great migratory movement, the barrios started to grow rapidly close to the industrial and commercial areas where jobs were generated, especially on the hills surrounding the city, where space was available. These settlements were built on precarious materials, without planification, infrastructure or services. The lack of job opportunity on the country side made it so the city became the only place to have a decent and prosperous life. Caracas was the utopian dream city, a place often painted with opportunities on every corner, where money was always available and obtainable for the hard worker, and the receptor of both national and international migrations. Unfortunately, that was not always the case, because in order for some to prosper, others must suffer. There was always a part of the population that lived under precarious conditions, and that continuously struggled to improve their quality of life. At the same time, the urban expansion on the agriculture land at the East of the valley increased, with new neighborhoods, which were connected only by car roads, while at the West of the city began its urbanization with the work of the Banco Obrero, creating social housing for the incoming rural population that had a low level of monetary acquisition. The migrations persisted during the entirety of the Twentieth century, and with such a high demand for housing, the urbanizing process of the valley increased in a non-precedented way. Their main goal was to accommodate people in a fast and efficient way, without a real plan that

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Image source: DÍAZ, Juan Carlos Arquitectura Venezolana: Hotel Humboldt, ícono de Venezuela View of the valley of Caracas from the Ávila mountain

understood in depth if the equipment and services that were provided in these new areas were sufficient or adequate. That is how Caracas started to become a city with such a high-density level, where there is a constant sensation of claustrophobia and confinement. There are very few public spaces in comparison to its population. Highways and roads were always the most imminent and urgent priority when it came to urban planification, leaving the pedestrian and everyone that could not access to a car to a second place. This confinement creates both a sense of security for Caraquenians, but also of suffocation where there is no room to breathe. The valley filled up quickly and almost to completion, and its citizens had to learn to adapt to these conditions. It went from a utopian dream, to a dystopian reality in which its main problems as society were never really addressed, only used as a way for personal gain of those in power throughout the decades. The attempts to solve said problems were always insufficient, whether it was by looking at the other way when corruption and negligence occurred, or just a complete lack of understanding of the real needs of the citizens of a dysfunctional city, by oversimplifying the issues that they have to face daily. The creation and implementation of environmental politics is an undeniable need that has not yet been attended, not only for its citizens, but also from a global perspective.

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CHAPTER 2

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The two Caracas: East vs. West

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Social strata by neighborhood along the Libertador Avenue, using the ABC+ standard

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Criminality

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Image source: ROCCO, Nicola Caracas Cenital Convergence between La Urbina neighborhood and the Petare barrio

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CASE STUDY

PARQUES BIBLIOTECA

Medellín, Colombia

From violence to transformation through culture

A case study that I think it’s relevant on how Medellín went from being the most dangerous city in the world only 20 years ago (place that now Caracas has) to being transformed through public space and urban interventions. I found a document by the Municipality of Medellín which I want to use as a source for this part.

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Image source: GÓMEZ, Sergio Parque Biblioteca Leon de Greiff. Aereal view

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URBAN SPACE CRISIS

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0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Minimum required by the World’s Health

Organization sqm/hab

Caracas Bogotá Santiago de Chile

São Paulo Milan Madrid New York London

Data source: Public space by sqm: World’s Health Organization

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0.00 .5 1.01 .5 2.02 .5 65,4% 20,3% 9,8% 2,2% 2,2% El Hatillo Chacao Baruta Sucre Libertador

Distribution of public space by municipality (sqm/hab) Distribution of population by municipality Municipalities of Caracas

Data source: Distribution of population: Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) Distribution of public space: Municipio Metropolitano de Caracas