Caracas—Memories of a Park, a German Village, and a Barrio

Recently, I have been seeing the name Venezuela in the news more often. Economic crises, security issues, immigration—only fragmented information flows through. While watching these, I suddenly remembered the landscape of Caracas that I visited over 20 years ago.

At the time, I understood almost nothing about this country. I had not properly studied its history, politics, or social background. Even so, only three landscapes—the park, the German village, and the barrio—remain deep within my body with an intensity I cannot explain.

Thinking about it now, I believe I was trying to think without understanding. And that line of thought could not be fully applied until the end.

Only three landscapes remain

Looking back now, I think I really understood nothing at all. I had not properly studied Venezuela's history, politics, or social situation. With a rough understanding of it being just a part of South America, I went there for a studio at the University of Pennsylvania. That was over 20 years ago.

Even so, only a few landscapes remain deep within my body.

The studio was taught by David Gouverneur. He was a teacher from Venezuela who was very cheerful and a good dancer. I remember strangely clearly that even when he was talking about cities, he was somehow physical and festive. I should have been taught the theory, but at the time, I understood almost none of it.

However, the way he directed his gaze, the way he stopped in the city, and the feeling of being taken to the place called Caracas along with that physical sensation—only that remains.

The first thing that left a strong impression on me was the park, Parque del Este. My honest motivation for taking this studio was that I was interested in Burle Marx.

The streets of Caracas were overflowing with vivid paintings, and as an extension of that, the park also had strong colors and outlines. However, what was impressive was not the design itself, but the way of walking.

The flow of movement was not fixed to a single path.

Some people passed through quickly, while others sat on benches and stayed for a long time. Stays of different speeds were permitted simultaneously. There was not just one gate, but a configuration that seemed to seep into the city side from multiple entrances.

I couldn't put it into words at the time, but years later, when I saw Rem Koolhaas's Downsview Park proposal, I suddenly remembered this park. It wasn't that the theories were similar, but rather a feeling that the way the body was used overlapped.

In Caracas, café con leche was delicious everywhere I went. Even if it wasn't a special shop, the balance of milk and coffee was strangely good, and it felt like part of the city's rhythm.

The memory of the taste is linked to the landscape and is still vivid today.

When I went toward the mountains in the north, there was a German village. They grew strawberries, which were very sweet, and the sausages were surprisingly delicious. The area, organized as a tourist destination, was easy to understand and felt like a somewhat reassuring landscape.

However, when I stepped out of there and entered the residential area in the mountains, the air changed. I remember being looked at with an expression as if they were seeing an Asian person for the first time. It wasn't hostility, but pure surprise.

The transplanted landscape suddenly becomes vivid outside the system of tourism. That sense of discomfort was conveyed to my body without explanation.

That place was behaving like a city

On the other hand, the most intense thing was the barrio that spread along the mountainside. An aggregate that spread as if clinging to the slope, symbolizing the city of Caracas.

At first, just looking at it from the outside was interesting enough, but once I actually went inside, I found small shops and a life overflowing.

You can go this far.
You cannot go beyond this point.
No photos allowed.

I remember walking while being told those things. Even so, I thought of that place not as a "housing complex," but as a place that behaved like a city.

Living, working, selling, gathering. These things were all self-contained within. There wasn't just one center; there were countless small pools and intersections.

Looking back, one might say the scale was self-similar, strongly defined by the topography, and that the time of immigrants was layered like strata. But at the time, I was simply overwhelmed.

Thoughts I couldn't fully apply

Around that time, I was also taking a class with Cecil Balmond, and I was strongly attracted to the process of proliferation rather than the structure itself.

I genuinely thought that the ideas of fractal architecture could be applied to urban planning and landscape design.

In architecture, structure acts as a strong constraint, and form eventually converges somewhere. Therefore, fractal operations also eventually settle into a "viable form." But cities and landscapes are different. The existing situation itself is the premise, and there is no structure to close the form.

I once tried to create a pattern using Rhino scripts and make it proliferate. If it's a fractal where the form can be imagined to some extent, it moves in a way that seems plausible.

This fractal study was highly rated in my architecture class. The rules of proliferation were clear, it didn't break down as a form, and it ultimately converged as architecture. However, looking back now, I also think it was a fairly closed growth when viewed as a landscape.

Although it appeared to deal with growth and proliferation, in reality, it was a structure that simply increased toward a predetermined form. The subject of the growth was not the place or the situation, but was placed inside me at the time—on the side of the scripts and rules. Whenever I tried to reproduce growth like that of a barrio, where you don't know where it's heading, my hands would inevitably stop.

I didn't understand the parameters.
It wasn't about angles or ratios; it was probably about the "conditions for survival."

What I worked on after that was a landscape studio dealing with Caracas, titled "agriculture to industrial, what’s next."

This, too, was no different from the previous study in that it placed "growth" and "proliferation" at its foundation. However, what I was trying to deal with was not the form itself, but the overlapping situations of existing topography, infrastructure, farmland, and barrios.

Divide, add, subtract, and rearrange phases.

That process did not strongly assert a final form, but rather, it was closer to the state of a city that proceeds without knowing where it is heading. The rules of growth were entrusted to the side of the place, not inside the design.

When I line up these two studios, it becomes clear where I was getting stuck and where I was trying to head.

Some things may function as architecture, yet remain closed off as cities or landscapes. Conversely, some attempts, even if not highly polished, remain open to their circumstances and thus continue to be thought about for a long time.

Perhaps by then, I had already begun to shift my interest from which one was 'better executed' to which one could 'continue to live.'

At the time, I did not understand what Gouverneur was saying, nor did I understand the country of Venezuela. Without properly grasping the theories or the background, I was simply walking through the area. Even so, the three landscapes—the park, the German village, and the barrio—remain with me even now with an intensity I cannot explain.

Sometimes, a landscape touches your body before you can understand it.
Before you can feel like you have understood, there are thoughts that remain, unable to be fully applied. I believe that in Caracas, I was truly experiencing that.