Hipódromo La Rinconada, 1959.
Parque del Este, Roberto Burle Marx, 1950.
El Cerrito, Gio Ponti, 1957.
Club Táchira, Fruto Vivas, 1955.
IMPRINTS
THE ARCHITECTURE OFFICES
In this context, the private clientele reached out to prestigious professionals from the international scene, as a manifestation that any wish could be fulfilled or financed. A large contingent of European and North American architects passed through Venezuela for some commission, except Don Hatch, who developed diverse and notable works over a decade of permanence. Gio Ponti built Villa Planchart, in Colinas de San Román (1957); Richard Neutra, the González Gorrondona house in the foothills of the Ávila (1962); Marcel Breuer, the project for the El Recreo complex, with Fuenmayor & Sayago (1960); Rino Levi, the project for the La Parabola building, with Bermúdez, Lluberes & Brando (1956); Oscar Niemeyer, the preliminary project for the Museum of Modern Art in Colinas de Bello Monte (1955); Bruce Goff, the project for the Perez house in Playa Grande (1953); Lathrop Smith Douglas, the building for Creole Petroleum Co. in Bello Monte (1952); Charles Dale Badgeley and Charles Arkers Bradbury, the headquarters for the Shell Caribbean Petroleum Co. in San Bernardino (1950); Arthur B. Froehlich, the La Rinconada Hippodrome (1959), with landscaping by Roberto Burle Marx; Burle Marx himself, Parque del Este in Caracas, with Tábora and Stoddart (1961). One of the most notable oil camps was the one for Creole Petroleum Co. in Judibana, Falcones state (1955) designed by Skidmore, Owens & Merrill; the territorial interventions in the raw materials extraction centers, such as the Cerro Bolívar ferrous deposit, and the creation of Ciudad Guayana (1952), of the Orinoco Mining (US Steel), by José Luis Sert and Paul Lester Wiener, from Town Planning Associates.
Beyond involving the aforementioned foreign architects, private activity had a double significance: on one hand, it made visible and highlighted the intervention of Venezuelan capital and private investment in productive activities and services; on the other hand, the most significant works were made by corporations or companies of architects, in the manner of American corporations, one of whose pioneering examples was Burnham & Root, 1872. This idea was based on an argument that Sullivan summed up this way: "… carry out a great business, handle great things, deal with great businessmen, and build a great organization, since you can't manage great things if you have no organization" (Sullivan 1924, p. 285-286). Although in Venezuela architects who work as individual figures survived and still survive, this particular form of declared and formalized society was a feature of the studied period. In this way, and without detriment to the figures of Villanueva, Fruto Vivas (Táchira Club, with Eduardo Torroja, 1955), Cipriano Domínguez (Centro Simón Bolívar, 1949), Alejandro Pietri (Stations of the Teleférico of Caracas and Macuto, 1956) and many others of remarkable performance, the offices of Carbonell & Sanabria; Vegas & Galia; Ferris, Ferrero & Tamayo and Vegas Ferris & Ferrero; Guinand, Benacerraf & Vestuti; Romero Gutiérrez, Bornhorst & Neuberger and Carpio & Suárez expressed the most vivid example of the change of professional modality (Sato 1996, p. 50). A special mention in this short list of offices must be made of the works of the Vegas & Galia society: the El Municipal building in the center of Caracas, with tower and podium (1951); the Polar-Teatro del Este complex, of Plaza Venezuela (1953), the first free-standing tower with a curtain wall in its four façades, podium and annexed theater-cinema; the
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