«The debates of plastic integration, modern architecture, and the development of new city forms come to the forefront in two major universities: the UNAM in Mexico City and the Universidad central in Caracas, Venezuela. The first exemplifies figurative, legible, and socially conscious art; the second, abstraction.», in: Carranza / Lara, 2014, p. 166–169 (dieser beitrag wurde verfasst in: englisch)
eingetragen von Alex Winiger am 18.09.2016, 22:32 (email senden)
«[…] the organization of the buildings is no longer formalized by the axis, as it had been before, but rather by the circulation. The trajectory that Villanueva had developed for pedestrians not only serves to connect the buildings to each other but also frames views of the campus and its art that, like the Mexican example [of the UNAM], can be found throughout the complex. […] the art in the Caracas campus, however, does not operate within the same canons of legibility, realism, or nationalism. Instead, the artists that Villanueva commissioned were primarily European or Venezuelans who had studied in Europe – such as Alejandro Otero and Mateo Manaure, who formed part of the group Los Disidentes (The Dissidents), since they had moved away from Latin America to break away from the still-present legacy of the Mexican muralist tradition.
The path that Villanueva organized through the complex is based on a choreography of five movements (akin to musical scores) designed to create a synthesis between art and architecture: 'to corroborate, to accentuate, and to enhance the form-space reality of architectural design; or, in a reverse process, to disperse, transform into pure space relationships the solids of architecture.' The first movement, which takes place at the entry court of the Plaza del Rectorade, aims at dematerializing the structure and form of the Museum building, which is a characteristically funcional building with an expressed structural grid.
The second movement is part of the treshold between the entry plaza and the cultural center beyond it; the murals by Oswaldo Vigas are intended to give an impression of lightening the feeling of the Administration building and to highlight the dynamic form of the Communications building.
The third movement is the most complex not only in its integration of the art to the environment but also in its architectural and spatial qualities. Characterized by an amorphously shaped covered plaza, this is an intermediary space that lies between the administration building and the Aula Magna (the main lecture hall for the university). The architectural covering articulates the relationship between inside and outside, between covered and uncovered spaces (some of which have tropical vegetation), and creates a continuously changing play of light and shadows. The art pieces in this area include free-standing murals (some double sided) by Fernand Léger, Mateo Manaure, and Pascual Navarro as well as sculptures such as Jean Arp's Cloud Shepherd (1953). The importance of the pedestrians' movement through this space and around the art pieces is central to their understanding, as they materialize Villanueva's desire for the 'conntemporary concept of Time-Space.' The covered plaza, connected to a perforated-brick enclosed foyer, also serves as a transition to the Aula Magna. The interior of the hall is covered with Alexander Calder's Flying Saucers (1953), resulting from the collaboration between the North American artist, the architect, and acoustical engineers, as they were also intended to mitigate the echoes in the hall. These colorful and organic shapes playfully hang from the ceiliing and, in some instances, are attached to the side walls. With the artificial lighing systems, they create a dynamic spatial environment that is, dialectically, both decorative and funcional.
The fourth movement, which takes place between the Aula Magna, the library, and the concert hall, is perhaps the most visually dynamic. Transitioning from the Plaza Cubierta, the pedestrian passes a circular shape decorated by Manaure and is confronted by two bold mural forms. The first is a zigzagging triptych by Pascual Navarro that serves as the entry to the concert Hall. In front of it and at the edge of an open courtyard is an aluminium louvered screen by Victor Vasarely that provides a constantly changing visual and architectonic experience that changes according to the viewer's movement and position as well as that of the sun.
The fifth and final movement takes place outside the concert hall, whose rear exterior has been covered in a mosaic mural, an abstraction of music by Manaure; beyond it is Maternity by Baltasar Lobo. Across from the entry to the concert hall is a mural on the cooling tower by Vasarely and, immediately in front of that, a bronze sculpture by Antoine Pevsner. These works become transitional to the final building in the choreography of pedestrian movement: the twelvestory central library building with its exposed structural grid. The library is closed off, as in the Mexican example, to respond to the need to protect the books from the sun an other climatic conditions. In this case, however, the last three stories are open and enclosed with recessed windows. On the side facing the rear of the concert hall is the library's reading room. Like the other buildings already discussed, the library incorporates art as part of its overall design: a stained glass by Léger, murals by Navarro, and other works. Other notable buildings in the university include the nine-story School of Architecture with its polychorme tile façade by Alejandro Otero, who, throught his choice of blues to match the Venezuelan sky, attempted to dematerialize the mass of the building and the School of Humanities that stands behind the Aula Magna. […]»
