University City of Caracas
Introduction
The University City of Caracas[1] is the main campus of the Central University of Venezuela, it has a built area of 164.22 hectares (1.64 km²)[2] and land that reaches 202.53 hectares. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. It is located in the Urb Valle Abajo of the San Pedro Parish "San Pedro Parish (Caracas)") of the Libertador Municipality "Libertator Municipality of Caracas (Venezuela)") of Caracas, Venezuela.[2].
The University City is considered a masterpiece of contemporary architecture and urban planning (see Criteria of the UNESCO Declaration).
It is an exceptional example of the Modern Movement of architecture inspired by the Bauhaus. It brings together a large number of buildings and functions organized in a cleanly interrelated complex enriched with masterpieces of modern architecture and other plastic arts, in what has been called the "Synthesis of the Major Arts", which finds its maximum expression in the Aula Magna "Aula Magna (Central University of Venezuela)"), with its acoustic work Nubes Flotantes "Floating Clouds (work of art)") by Alexander Calder, in the Olympic Stadium with its enormous allegorical statues of sport and in the Covered Plaza with its murals and sculptures by artists such as Jean Arp, Fernand Léger, Victor Vasarely and Mateo Manaure.
History
Built according to the project of the Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva,[2] between 1940 and 1960 on the grounds of the Hacienda Ibarra, property donated by the Liberator Simón Bolívar to the former Royal and Pontifical University of Caracas after its reorganization under the republican statutes that converted it into the modern Central University of Venezuela.
The University City was created as a house of studies that had the capacity to house a larger student population than the Palace of the Academies, headquarters of the Central University of Venezuela, was able to receive at that time, following the line of a modern and single campus that could concentrate all the university departments on the same campus, that is, a university that concentrated all its functions in a single headquarters.
In 1942, under the presidency of Isaías Medina Angarita, studies of the new project began. After analyzing different sites, the land of Hacienda Ibarra was chosen, which would be the ideal site to connect to the new geographic center of the city around Plaza Venezuela.