Final_project

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Hi, I’m Valentina Vargas. I’m an architecture student, I’m going to show you what makes Venezuela unique from an architectural perspective

 It is amazing the variety of color that can be found in Venezuela, its vegetation and animals have all kinds of color, and all of these colors can also be found in its architecture. All around the country, small towns have lots of red roof houses painted on cheerfull colors, and inside the cities we can find big orange brick buildings, grey concrete buildings and others that being made of glass reflect the color of the sky. Besides, this country is were the artist Carlos Cruz diez was born in, his life work is dedicated to color and we have samples of his art all over our buildings like in the international airport of maiquetía, or as we used to have in the port of La Guaira.

In Venezuela we find architecture from the great master Carlos Raúl Villanueva who was very interested in light, so constructions as the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas are a masterpiece specially because of the treatment that he gave to light letting it flood all spaces. At night most of our cities come alive with color lightning, as in Maracaibo’s bridge

Texture is an outstanding characteristic on Venezuelan architecture, we can see in the streets how buildings change, from the smooth texture of glass to the rough texture of stone, and how architects play with texture in the building’s facade as in the facades of the Teresa Carreño Theatre and the Museo de Bellas Artes. Another example is the new baruta’s city hall that combines the textures of glass, brick and metal in the same building

Acoustics in Venezuela is very important, we have the Teresa Carreño Teatre that is one of the most important theatres on Latin America and its architects gave it the most amazing acoustics characteristics, all the concert halls have ways to adjust the acoustics for every kind of performance, we also have the aula Magna on Central University of Venezuela that is suited with a ceiling acoustic artwork designed by Calder.

Rhythm is present in the constructions of big multiresidential buildings and also in the streets of the little towns around the country, as much as in the interior of this houses that contains a rhythmical colonnade around a courtyard and let you appreciate the rhythm from the inside of the house

Vertical and horizontal circulation is very well solved on the Milenium mall, this building has ramps across the principal spaces that facilitate horizontal circulation and a series of mechanical stairs and elevators that facilitate vertical circulation

Space and scale is beautifully shown in teresa carreño theatre, it has a monumental scale that is required for the big events that take place there but also a human scale in the access of the concert halls

All of these constructions along with the people that made them true makes Venezuela an unique country and thanks to this project I was able to realize that this country is really culturaly rich.