Villanueva, Carlos Raúl (1900–1975)

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Known for his urban renewal projects in Venezuela and for organizing professional architecture and planning associations, Carlos Raúl Villanueva promoted a modern architecture balanced by respect for the preservation of the colonial architecture of Latin America.

The son of a Venezuelan diplomat, Villanueva was born in Croydon, England. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and received a diploma in 1928. Relocating to Caracas, he began private practice the following year. Although beaux-arts trained, Villanueva led the modern movement in Venezuela, reflecting his contemporaries’ work in Europe. He successfully integrated art into his architecture and translated modernist concrete forms to the sunlight of the tropics, using screens, reflection, and shading devices. One of his most celebrated projects was the elementary school
Escuela Gran Colombia (1939). A building to attain the social ideals of modernism, it rejected historical precedent. Other buildings designed by Villanueva include the Olympic Stadium (1950–1952), El Paraiso Housing Development (1954), and the University City projects, School of Architecture and Urbanism, Pharmacy Building, and the Olympic Swimming Stadium (1957), all in Caracas (Van Vynckt, 1993; Villanueva and Pintó, 2000).

Paulina Villanueva explains that her father had a distinct method of using sketching during his design process. He sketched with ‘strong yet precise strokes that enabled him to compose complex ideas with few lines’ (Villanueva and Pintó, 2000, pp. 9–10). She recalls that he would sketch many small images to reach a design solution and continually revisit those first sketches. To achieve these bold and efficient sketches he used a blunt pencil. The resulting heavy line provided a concise outline.

Although he destroyed many of his drawings and sketches, considering them as only part of the process, a few of these graphically robust images remain, primarily from his final projects. Villanueva’s sketches appear consistent with his architecture. The straightforward expression of edges, abstract shape, and precise proportion reflects his use of bold modernist forms. This page presents a preliminary study for the Jesús Soto Museum of Modern Art in Bolivar City,
Venezuela. The sketch, dating from the late 1960s, shows a site plan of the museum and describes the juxtaposition of the various buildings. At this early stage in conceptual design, he was not concerned with straight lines or details. This shows in the minimal forms that describe buildings, some with only four lines. Several of the buildings have been roughly darkened and others appear unfinished, such as the overhangs/porches on the galleries. The sketch is an attempt to quickly comprehend the whole site. Concerned with contrast that could help him visualize the context, he shaded the ground with bold texture using a continuous zigzag stroke.

Considering the series of sketches that exist for this project, the design evolved as to location of the parking, placement of the irregular central plaza, and shape of several buildings. The three rectangular gallery spaces that face the curved street remained consistent throughout the process. Here he held fast to the bold and strong forms, using them to anchor the site.

Villanueva utilized an economy of lines for these first studies. He was recording forms as they presented themselves, not eliminating their potential. This is evidenced by the fact that he did not take the time to erase and redraw shapes. Villanueva was comfortable visualizing a spatial organization from a small sketch, then critiquing its qualities for the evolution of the scheme. The abstraction of the small sketches did not hinder the early development of the design. Most importantly, he was able to ‘read’ these partial forms to translate them into architectural form.