REGRESIÓN

Av Urdaneta. Caracas, Venezuela
2017-2018

The Karam building, once a modernist icon, is now a dilapidated structure along Caracas’ Urdaneta Avenue, a testimony to a city that is no more, a city of passive observers, apathetic and unable to recognize the city’s treasures hidden in plain sight.

The project is centered on the act of observation as an opportunity to acknowledge an urban icon and raise awareness of the state of architectural heritage in our city. We aim at creating a scence on, around and for the building so as to highlight and celebrate it while actively engaging those who walk by. For this we rely on three devices:

A flower curtain suspended along the building’s front façade, closing of the U-shaped courtyard. This device, made of live flowers, should remain hung until all petals fall, thus highlighting the passage of time and covering the sidewalk in front of the building in a colorful pattern.

Three viewfinders, strategically placed on the opposite sidewalk and pointing at specific details on the building’s facades, invite pedestrians to pause and look up.

Spotlights, located under the glass panels that line the pavement in front of the building, will help illuminate it and activate this sidewalk during night-time.

These three devices treat this small piece of city as a stage, an event we propose takes place for the next anniversary of Caracas. While both the flower curtain and viewfinders would be temporary installations, the spotlights would be a remainder of what happened and keep on lighting up this important building.