DEMOCRATIC RENEWAL: URBAN PLAN, SOCIAL ASSISTANCE AND EDUCATION
Some of the themes initiated in the Gómez agenda were retaken during the government of Eleazar López Contreras (1936-41), with the creation of the Urbanism Directorate (1937), the first Venezuelan example of a local planning office. The office, attached to the Government of the Federal District of Caracas, developed the urban plan published in 1939, more than a decade after other Latin American capital city plans. In terms of public works, the López sanitation program was based on an administrative platform with a better structure than that of the Gómez administration. It included the Division of Irrigation Works of the Ministry of Public Works (MOP, 1939), the National Institute of Hygiene and the Division of Sanitary Engineering of the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance (MSAS) (López Contreras, 1936 p. 19). The health program also relied on the creation of public and private medical establishments. Basic schooling – “sanitize, educate, populate” - was a strategy with which the administration of López Contreras strengthened the middle and professional levels of education. Supported by the MOP aerial photography service, inaugurated in 1935 (González Deluca, 2013 p. 279), the public works program of López Contreras also sought the consolidation of a “national system of cities”, through the strengthening of commercial ties and com- munication in the country. Two important objectives were the “Planning and methodical execution of a national road system, in view of linking the centers of production to the centers of consumption, and both with ports and border facilities”, as well as the “Na- tional regulation of automobile traffic”, so that it could be carried out “with the greatest economy, safety and efficiency” (López Contreras, 1966 p. 21-22).
PUBLIC WORKS AND EL SILENCIO
Centered on the alliance created by the Second World War, the ties between the govern- ments of Isaías Medina Angarita (1941-45) and Franklin D. Roosevelt included, in terms of public works, financial aid for urban development projects in Venezuela. In 1941, the National Council of Public Works was created, which drew up the Five-Year Public Works Plan, including the construction of 1,400 km of roads (Olivar, 2014 p. 63), and in 1943 the National Institute of Sanitary Works (INOS), which operated until 1990. Communications to serve the oil capital were also expanded: two years after the creation of Aerovías Venezolanas, SA (Avensa) in 1943, the MOP began studies for the Caracas-La Guaira highway. Also, Maiquetía airport was opened, begun in 1939 following the design of Luis Malaussena (González Deluca, 2013 p. 280-281, Maldonado, 1997 p. 154). They seemed to follow the strategies of the urban plan of 1939, which affirmed that Caracas, given its advantageous location, was called to be the Pan-American capital of the Caribbean basin and civilization (GDF, 1939 p. 19). The government of Medina seemed to distance itself from the monumental urbanism of the Lopez administration, which had in some way represented the transition from the Gómez ancien régime to the democratic republic. In the same way that the plan of 1939 was reduced to a “Master plan of streets and avenues”, led by the municipal govern- ment (Martín, 1991 p. 93), the monumental forum proposed to the west was replaced by a housing project of social interest, in accordance with the populist aims of the Medina administration.
Reurbanización de El Silencio, Carlos Raúl Villanueva, 1941. El Silencio urban planning.
After a public tender, Diego Nucete Sardi, director of the Banco Obrero, commissioned architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva with the urban renewal of El Silencio, a deteriorated district at the time, where the forum proposed by Rotival was located. The adopted solution was conciliatory at both the urban and architectural level: although the original civic use was modified, Villanueva explicitly determined the location of El Silencio as the focal point of the avenue system structuring the 1939 plan (Almandoz, 2006 p. 343-346).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Acts and Conclusions of the First Congress of Municipalities, Imprenta Bolívar, Caracas, 1913, - Allegret, José Raúl: "Roads and Highways", in Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela IV p. 602-604, Fundación Polar, 4ts., Caracas, 1997. - Almandoz, Arturo: European Urbanism in Caracas (1870-1940), Equinoccio, Universidad Simón Bolívar (USB), Fundación para la Cultura Urbana, Caracas, 2006. - Almandoz, Arturo: Urban modernization in Latin America. From large villages to overcrowded metropolis. Institute of Urban and Territorial Studies, Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago, 2017. - Cartay, Rafael: "Aqueducts", in Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela I p. 40-46, Fundación Polar, 4ts., Caracas, 1997. - Colmenares, José Luis: Carlos Guinand Sandoz. Documents for the history of contemporary Venezuelan architecture (Collection), Caracas, 1989. - Decree for the Construction of the roads of the Republic: Gaceta Oficial, June 25, Caracas, 1910. - National Gallery Of Art (Galería De Arte Nacional Gan): Wallis/Domínguez/Guinand: Pioneering architects of an era), GAN, Caracas, 2017. - Government Of The Federal District (Gobernación Del Distrito Federal Gdf): "Monumental Plan for Caracas", Revista del Concejo Municipal del Distrito Federal, 1 p. 17 and following, Caracas, 1939. - González Deluca, María Elena: Venezuela. The construction of a country ... a story that continues), Cámara Venezolana de la Construcción (CVC), Caracas, 2013. - López Contreras, Eleazar: Presentation by the general citizen Eleazar López Contreras, President of the United States of Venezuela, of the activities of his government, held in 1936, within the guidelines of the February program, Imprenta Nacional, Caracas, 1936. - Eleazar López Contreras, Government and Administration, 1936-1941, Editorial Arte, Caracas, 1966. - Maldonado Burgoin, Carlos: Engineers and Engineering in Venezuela. From the 15th to the 20th Century. 30th Anniversary Tecnoconsult Edition, Caracas, 1997. - Martín Frechilla, Juan José: "Rotival from 1939 to 1959. From the city as business to planning as an excuse", in AA. VV., El Plan Rotival. La Caracas que no fue p. 73-107, Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), Caracas, 1991. - Olivar, José Alberto: Automobile use, roads and modernization. An approach to the history of communication in Venezuela during the first half of the 20th century, Academia Nacional de la Historia, Fundación Bancaribe para la Ciencia y la Cultura, Caracas, 2014. - Poëte, Marcel, (1939): "L'esprit de l'urbanisme français", L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, 3, 20 ans d'urbanisme appliqué en France: III-4-5, Paris, March, 1939.
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