EGP
The third project of the Vegas & Galia firm was built in Plaza Venezuela. Consisting of an office prism, a body of shops and a theater, the stunning new Caracas skyscraper was reviewed at the time by Henry Russell Hitchcock as «The most ingenious and best designed Latin American skyscraper…the lightness of the general effect is most striking» and by Geoffrey Broadbent, for incorporating one of the first curtain walls, built simultaneously with those of Lever House (SOM, 1951) and before the Seagram Building (Mies van der Rohe, 1954). The 15-story tower, a perfect parallelepiped overlooking Los Caobos Park and the Botanical Garden, with free floor plans and a cen-tral circulation core, rests on a base of three levels, shops and mezzanines. The initial reinforced concrete struc-tural calculation by Morandi, Otaola and Benedetti was modified using curtain walls with a steel grid, obtaining a technological finish. The theater (Cinerama, 1956-1960), with 1242 seats, was the most modern in the city at the time. The theater has polychromes by Alejandro Otero (1921-1990) and a bas-relief and sculpture by Carlos Gonzá-lez Bogen (1920-1992), the latter one now disappeared. In 1992 a second tower was built adjacent to the complex and the first one was remodeled, changing the color of the façade profiles and glass and unifying the two buildings. This notable work has a well deserved place in the history of national and international modern architecture.
A-FV
planta
NE-25