The patio as an opportunity for reuse: TPA Housing project in Maracaibo, Venezuela

Town Planning Associates (TPA) was the architectural firm led by Josep Lluis Sert, Paul Lester Wiener, and Paul Schulz, primarily engaged in projects across Latin America from 1942 to 1959. Its particular focus was on promoting the concept of urban projects that included Eurocentric fundamental elements in the local culture, complementing —even challenging— the ideas presented by Le Corbusier and CIAM in the Athens Charter. In 1951, TPA collaborated with the Venezuelan Oficina de Planificación y Vivienda, featuring architects Moisés Benacerraf, Carlos Guinand Baldó, and engineer Francisco Carrillo Batalla, for a project in Maracaibo. This city was rapidly evolving into a hub for the burgeoning oil industry. Pomona Housing emerged as the only neighborhood unit entirely conceived and constructed by TPA. The project encompassed single-family homes with central patios, multifamily dwellings, school, health facilities, shopping center, and sports fields. In this endeavor, the architects strategically used the patio as a unifying element, believing that they were responding correctly to the climatic nuances of the region and drawing inspiration from the organizational structure of traditional Venezuelan colonial residences. Despite meticulous consideration for climatic conditions and cultural context, the complex has undergone substantial transformations, retaining only fragments of its original architectural integrity. This analysis delves into the possible factors contributing to this evolution, centering around three fundamental questions: Why was the patio-centric housing unit strategy deemed as a unique response to the housing deficit? Furthermore, considering such projects as responses to post-war European city reconstruction, why was this model regarded as pertinent for consolidating new peripheral areas in Latin America, more specifically in Venezuela, to the detriment of local forms?

Volume Editors
Sara Jensen Carr & Rubén García Rubio

ISBN
978-1-944214-48-7