CARACAS, Venezuela — After a brief walking tour of central Caracas, Cuba's Fidel Castro last year admonished Venezuelans for allowing development to run rampant over the city's Spanish colonial gems. He cited Havana's prized Old City as an example to follow.
Truth is, according to Venezuelan historians, there was little of colonial Caracas to begin with. Visitors to this sprawling capital with 4 million inhabitants should understand that Caracas has always embraced the new, the modern — and, in recent decades, the North American.
"Modern architecture here is a cultural current very attached to our national feeling," says Abner Colmenares, dean of the School of Architecture at the Central University of Venezuela.
Until the 1930s, "there was nothing distinct about the city's architecture, unlike that of other Latin American cities," says assistant city historian Guillermo Durand.
Established in 1567 as Santiago de Leon de Caracas, this city is sandwiched between a Caribbean mountain range to the north and the Los Altos de Pipe range to the south. Its tiny center once gave way to rolling farmland and ranches.
Still hidden in the shadows of downtown skyscrapers are South American liberator Simon Bolivar's birthplace, the Plaza Bolivar, the elegant Casa Amarilla (Yellow House) and the 1665 Caracas Cathedral. On side streets, the persistent can find vestiges of the colonial era in the form of brick homes, remnants of Spanish masonry, and a hillside monastery.
Change came with oil. Its discovery in the early 1900s brought Venezuela's capital riches, a population explosion and unrelenting waves of construction. Caracas' landscape today is dominated by modern steel and glass skyscrapers; its boulevards are choked with traffic, its hillsides congested with shantytowns.
Development accelerated after World War II and the 1951-57 military dictatorship of Gen. Marcos Perez Jimenez. The art deco-era Silencio commercial district was razed and replaced by residential and commercial office buildings designed Carlos Raul Villanueva, one of Venezuela's foremost modernist architects. Perez Jimenez embarked on massive public works projects, including a series of marble-lined tunnels burrowing through the coastal range to connect Caracas with its port, La Guiara.
Venezuela exported its oil to the United States — and, at Perez Jimenez's urging, imported American architectural styles.
Perhaps the most important achievement of the period is the university, recognized as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations.
Architect Carlos Raul Villanueva conceived of the sprawling campus as a "synthesis of the arts." Its buildings and cantilevered walkways are decorated with the abstract sculptures of Francisco Narvaez, Henri Laurens and Jean Arp; stained glass mosaics by Fernand Leger and Mateo Manaure, and colorful tiled mosaics by Wilfredo Lam, Oswaldo Vigas and Victor Vasarely.
For modern architecture buffs, Caracas also offers:
The Black Cube. From a distance, this International-Style office building resembles a spy complex. Designed by American master builder Philip Johnson, the banking center successfully combines modern architecture with kinetic sculpture.
"The spaces are very generous," says architecture professor Rudolph Moreno. "They just invite you to come inside and wander around."
The Villa Planchart. Located in the upscale neighborhood of Lomas de San Roman, this house was designed by Italian architect Gio Ponti in 1955 to resemble a butterfly fluttering over a hilltop.
The Centro Simon Bolivar. The multifunctional design of this twin-tower office complex in downtown Caracas is a landmark of Space Age design. Built by Venezuelan architect Cipriano Dominguez and completed in 1952, the complex incorporates a bus terminal, museums and commercial offices.
The Parque del Este. Designed by Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx and completed in 1959, the park features abundant tropical flora, six lakes, a sculpture garden and plenty of open space.
Country Club: Formerly a coffee plantation, this residential area was designed by Frederick Olmstead, creator of New York City's Central and Prospect parks. An oasis of peace in the noisy city, Country Club is home to numerous embassies and consulates.
Caracas' bent for tearing down the old continues, threatening even recently renovated buildings.
One potential victim is the Hotel Avila, designed in the late 1930s by architect Wallace Harrison, who also designed the United Nations building in New York City. It's considered the first modern "Caribbean" style hotel that incorporates open, airy design elements with wood furnishings and details. A Swiss hotel chain recently purchased the property and wants to tear it down to make way for a more "modern" hotel.
"It's this obsession we have with Miami," Gomez says of the constant tearing down.
During the oil boom years of the 1970s, many Caracas residents regularly traveled to Miami to shop because the dollar was cheap against the local currency, the bolivar. When oil prices dropped in the 1980s, Venezuela slipped into recession, and fewer residents can afford to travel.
Many "Caraquenos," as city dwellers are known, feel a "kind of paradise lost. So developers try to re-create that loss, but very cheaply," Colmanares said.