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Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities
Torre David, a 45-story skyscraper in Caracas, has remained uncompleted since the Venezuelan economy collapsed in 1994. Today, it is the improvised home to more than 750 families living in an extra-legal and tenuous squat, that some have called a "vertical slum."
Urban-Think Tank, the authors of Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities, spent a year studying the physical and social organization of this ruin-become home. Richly illustrated with photographs by Iwan Baan, the book documents the residents’ occupation of the tower and how, in the absence of formal infrastructure, they organize themselves to provide for daily needs, with a hair salon, a gym, grocery shops, and more. The authors of this thought-provoking work investigate informal vertical communities and the architecture that supports them and issue a call for action: to see in informal settlements a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of putting design in service to a more equitable and sustainable future.
Urban-Think Tank, the authors of Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities, spent a year studying the physical and social organization of this ruin-become home. Richly illustrated with photographs by Iwan Baan, the book documents the residents’ occupation of the tower and how, in the absence of formal infrastructure, they organize themselves to provide for daily needs, with a hair salon, a gym, grocery shops, and more. The authors of this thought-provoking work investigate informal vertical communities and the architecture that supports them and issue a call for action: to see in informal settlements a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of putting design in service to a more equitable and sustainable future.
416 pages, Paperback
First published November 25, 2012
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August 14, 2013
There is an aura of significance surrounding Torre David. Starting with the title with the rolling r and biblical name, past of the tower marked by the failure of economic and political ambitions, present marked by material deficiencies and social assets as well as the potential future and its place in the panorama of Caracas. Torre David was intended as a symbol of economic prosperity, but its construction came to a halt in 1993, when the project’s developer, David Brillembourg, suddenly passed away. The 1994 collapse of Venezuela’s banks followed and the government bought the uncompleted building. Despite the lack of working elevators, electricity, or even running water, the building was occupied by squatters in 2007, who have created a cooperative to run the building and provide basic services for the estimated 3000 people who presently call Torre David home. Telling of the story of Torre David and its significance is undertaken by ETH Zurich as part of their Architecture and Urban Design Department known as Urban Think – Tank (U – TT) lead by Alfredo Brillembourg and Humbert Klumpner. Their work and research aims at increasing understanding of the informal city from three perspectives – humanitarian standpoint, theoretical standpoint and design standpoint encouraging to rethink the former physical limitations of contemporary architecture and shift the emphasis from form – driven to purpose oriented social architecture (Urban Think – Tank, 2013). Up till now, the research and telling of the story of Torre David has been their magnum opus, earning U – TT, photographer Iwan Baan and curator Justin McGuirk the Golden Lion at the 13th International Exhibition of Architecture at the Venice Biennale. The success could be explained both by the natural significance of Torre David as well as the outstanding work of U –TT. Just as Torre David stands out in the panorama of Caracas, the story and its perspective stands out in the debate of informal city and spontaneity in urbanism drawing attention and interest from close and far away places and standpoints. In such situation what Torre David appears to be depends on the perspective changing from a patchwork of improvisation, source of violence and insecurity to a safe heaven, source of pride and a home. The authors tell and promote the story from the standpoint of Torre David, attempting to give the story the natural significance of the Torre David itself and giving it the strenghts and weaknesses what such perspective offers.
The authors of the book believe in perspective which is based on deep engagement, humanitarian values and that form changes the content. Simultaneously such perspective is a call to an action of current and future architects as well, to see in the informal settlements of the world the potential for innovation and experimentation. Building upon these beliefs and intentions, the authors have structured the book in four parts - Past, Present, Possibility and Potential. In the Introduction they state their beliefs and intentions as well acknowledge the portrayal of Torre David in the media as the biggest vertical slum in the world. Therefore the authors start by raising the question whether Torre David really is a slum, whether squatters in Europe could serve as precendents and whether Torre David could be model for other places? A graphic novella by Andre Kitagawa in a simple way introduces to the history of the Torre David as well its occupation by the first settlers in 2007 and authors conclude that Torre David doesn’t fit any of the categories and that it could be something in its own. The question what excatly could it be is left for the following parts of the book.
The first step in the arrival of answer is exploring the past, therefore the economic and political context of Venezuela and Caracas is provided. It introduces to the 1958 Venezuelan political model, neoliberal reforms that followed, seizing of power by Hugo Chavez and the contradictios new constitution introduced by Chavez, which indirectly gave aura of legitimacy to seizing ‘idle’ properties and squatting, while also attempts to maintain government founded on the rule of law. This part of the book also explores the special place of Torre David in the informal structures of the city due to its location as well as for the degree of organization, cohesion among its residents and the sheer scale of the occupied structures. The present reveals the efforts and attempts of U – TT to get involved with Torre David and its community as well as offers detailed depiction of the physical and community organization of Torre David, exploring such aspects as moving in, modification, initiatives, infrastructure and social organization. This is the major part of the book supported by the photographic testimonials by Iwan Baan. At the end of this part authors return to the question – what is Torre David, since it doesn’t meet the conventional criteria for a slum, neither conventional standards for a residential high rise. The authors once again propose the earlier claim, that Torre David is both slum and high – rise residential housing, as well as something in its own - a microcosm of the mega city itself which is striving for permanence. This statement rises the questions about the role of architect and the ends of their work serving as a basis for the evaluation of the potential and possibilities of Torre David and profession of architects. The third part – possibilities, is built upon the information and observations from the past and present and authors claim that Torre David could be a laboratory for the real world testing of various approaches to sustainable design and operations. They offer three basic principles for operation in such context – resilience, adaptability and transformability which are applied in their technical solutions explored in this part. The final part – potential, starts with questioning what is city, its habitants and what is the future of Torre David? Authors search for the answer in the works and thoughts of Micheal Foucault, Edward Soya, Henri Lefebvre, Doug Sanders and Slavoj Žižek, well known social scientists, urbanists and philosophers. These thoughts and works are explored in three pages with oversized fonts serving as a support for their view of Torre David as a space for liberation where everything comes together - a laboratory for exploring and testing a utopian potential. Building upon the interpretations of Žižek’s thoughts, authors claim that utopia for them is both methodology, and a way of thinking and being, where new space is not invented, but matters of inner urgency are addressed and prevented. This interpretation serves them and supports their proposed tactics for intervening in the megacity as well as issuing a challenge and twelve guidelines to the architectural profession. Their suggested interventions are based on microtactics of five steps:
• Identify small projects;
• Work within communities and with their leaders;
• Test particular solutions to arrive at more general principles applicable to any informal city;
• Use bottom - up approaches (reusing, adopting and modifying)
• Develop industrially produced interchangable kit of parts
These steps do not erase what already exists or invents a new space. Therefore these 416 pages, abundant with photographic testimonials about the tower and from the tower, about the life in the tower and from the life in the tower, not only turn the spontaneity and tragedy at Torre David into high level of organization and utopian potential, but suggest that application of such perspective could be universal.
This research by intentions, design as well as suggestions attempt to contribute to the debates of informality and spontaneity in urbanism. And the natural significance of Torre David in the panorama can make every story told from this standpoint significant. It can provide deep and detailed description and representation of the surroundings therefore the view from Torre David is not a simple view from the window, it could be the view over the city. A valuable perspective for describing and seeing objects and processes around. It is also a unique and most precise standpoint for describing the physical and social structures of the building and life within it. And the combination of the view within and view from, gives the opportunity to better understand both views and their connections. Besides the story from the perspective of Torre David, it is composed intellingently and clearly, offering simple and logic structure, concentrated and well – weighted language, high – quality visualizations and photographies, depicting simple humanity of the building, surroundings and its everyday life, mapping it all in a very interesting and inspiring way. Variety of sources have been used, most importantly a year long personal involvement with the community, but also on local and international media and contributions to the contemporary urban debates by social scientists, urbanists, philosophers, writers and artists. It is amazingly well conducted research and shaped story which attempts to match the natural significance of Torre David and promote its perspective gaining not only the strengths, but also the weaknesses of such perspective. Just as the building naturaly stands out in the panorama of the city, the story and perspective attempts to do the same. It does provide valuable view, but by doing so it also underestimates the surrounding context and overemphasize the importance of its own perspective. The detailed documentation of Torre David and its everyday life is not matched by any descriptios of other self – governed informal communities even within the area of few blocks away, overemphasizing their own uniqueness and perspective. But the perspective from the tower has both benefits and disadvantages. When the look from a great height is directed towards distance, the closest objects remain out of sight while the faraway objects give false impression about their size, distance and importance. It means that the place and interaction of Torre David and its community within the rest of society and surroundings is insufficiently explored while political and economic context of the Venezuela receive much greater attention. And finally the perspective from and within the tower might give insidious feeling that we can see more than we actually can. After all, those are not multiple standpoints or ultimate standpoint that location at the tower offers. It is still one standpoint and moving up and down the floors offer just a different angle for the short glimpse that could be cought by the eye. The same goes for the perspective of the story from Torre David which attempts to claim that it includes more than it actually can, by providing brief selected extracts of politcal context, economic context as well as extracts from contemporary urban debates and ideas and promote their universal application. Neverthless it is a significant work and story where the qualities outweight the disadvantages and which attempts to mach the significance of the tower itself in many aspects. Ironically even the price for the book (45 €) offered by the publisher (Lars Müller Publishers) matches the number of the floors of Torre David
The authors of the book believe in perspective which is based on deep engagement, humanitarian values and that form changes the content. Simultaneously such perspective is a call to an action of current and future architects as well, to see in the informal settlements of the world the potential for innovation and experimentation. Building upon these beliefs and intentions, the authors have structured the book in four parts - Past, Present, Possibility and Potential. In the Introduction they state their beliefs and intentions as well acknowledge the portrayal of Torre David in the media as the biggest vertical slum in the world. Therefore the authors start by raising the question whether Torre David really is a slum, whether squatters in Europe could serve as precendents and whether Torre David could be model for other places? A graphic novella by Andre Kitagawa in a simple way introduces to the history of the Torre David as well its occupation by the first settlers in 2007 and authors conclude that Torre David doesn’t fit any of the categories and that it could be something in its own. The question what excatly could it be is left for the following parts of the book.
The first step in the arrival of answer is exploring the past, therefore the economic and political context of Venezuela and Caracas is provided. It introduces to the 1958 Venezuelan political model, neoliberal reforms that followed, seizing of power by Hugo Chavez and the contradictios new constitution introduced by Chavez, which indirectly gave aura of legitimacy to seizing ‘idle’ properties and squatting, while also attempts to maintain government founded on the rule of law. This part of the book also explores the special place of Torre David in the informal structures of the city due to its location as well as for the degree of organization, cohesion among its residents and the sheer scale of the occupied structures. The present reveals the efforts and attempts of U – TT to get involved with Torre David and its community as well as offers detailed depiction of the physical and community organization of Torre David, exploring such aspects as moving in, modification, initiatives, infrastructure and social organization. This is the major part of the book supported by the photographic testimonials by Iwan Baan. At the end of this part authors return to the question – what is Torre David, since it doesn’t meet the conventional criteria for a slum, neither conventional standards for a residential high rise. The authors once again propose the earlier claim, that Torre David is both slum and high – rise residential housing, as well as something in its own - a microcosm of the mega city itself which is striving for permanence. This statement rises the questions about the role of architect and the ends of their work serving as a basis for the evaluation of the potential and possibilities of Torre David and profession of architects. The third part – possibilities, is built upon the information and observations from the past and present and authors claim that Torre David could be a laboratory for the real world testing of various approaches to sustainable design and operations. They offer three basic principles for operation in such context – resilience, adaptability and transformability which are applied in their technical solutions explored in this part. The final part – potential, starts with questioning what is city, its habitants and what is the future of Torre David? Authors search for the answer in the works and thoughts of Micheal Foucault, Edward Soya, Henri Lefebvre, Doug Sanders and Slavoj Žižek, well known social scientists, urbanists and philosophers. These thoughts and works are explored in three pages with oversized fonts serving as a support for their view of Torre David as a space for liberation where everything comes together - a laboratory for exploring and testing a utopian potential. Building upon the interpretations of Žižek’s thoughts, authors claim that utopia for them is both methodology, and a way of thinking and being, where new space is not invented, but matters of inner urgency are addressed and prevented. This interpretation serves them and supports their proposed tactics for intervening in the megacity as well as issuing a challenge and twelve guidelines to the architectural profession. Their suggested interventions are based on microtactics of five steps:
• Identify small projects;
• Work within communities and with their leaders;
• Test particular solutions to arrive at more general principles applicable to any informal city;
• Use bottom - up approaches (reusing, adopting and modifying)
• Develop industrially produced interchangable kit of parts
These steps do not erase what already exists or invents a new space. Therefore these 416 pages, abundant with photographic testimonials about the tower and from the tower, about the life in the tower and from the life in the tower, not only turn the spontaneity and tragedy at Torre David into high level of organization and utopian potential, but suggest that application of such perspective could be universal.
This research by intentions, design as well as suggestions attempt to contribute to the debates of informality and spontaneity in urbanism. And the natural significance of Torre David in the panorama can make every story told from this standpoint significant. It can provide deep and detailed description and representation of the surroundings therefore the view from Torre David is not a simple view from the window, it could be the view over the city. A valuable perspective for describing and seeing objects and processes around. It is also a unique and most precise standpoint for describing the physical and social structures of the building and life within it. And the combination of the view within and view from, gives the opportunity to better understand both views and their connections. Besides the story from the perspective of Torre David, it is composed intellingently and clearly, offering simple and logic structure, concentrated and well – weighted language, high – quality visualizations and photographies, depicting simple humanity of the building, surroundings and its everyday life, mapping it all in a very interesting and inspiring way. Variety of sources have been used, most importantly a year long personal involvement with the community, but also on local and international media and contributions to the contemporary urban debates by social scientists, urbanists, philosophers, writers and artists. It is amazingly well conducted research and shaped story which attempts to match the natural significance of Torre David and promote its perspective gaining not only the strengths, but also the weaknesses of such perspective. Just as the building naturaly stands out in the panorama of the city, the story and perspective attempts to do the same. It does provide valuable view, but by doing so it also underestimates the surrounding context and overemphasize the importance of its own perspective. The detailed documentation of Torre David and its everyday life is not matched by any descriptios of other self – governed informal communities even within the area of few blocks away, overemphasizing their own uniqueness and perspective. But the perspective from the tower has both benefits and disadvantages. When the look from a great height is directed towards distance, the closest objects remain out of sight while the faraway objects give false impression about their size, distance and importance. It means that the place and interaction of Torre David and its community within the rest of society and surroundings is insufficiently explored while political and economic context of the Venezuela receive much greater attention. And finally the perspective from and within the tower might give insidious feeling that we can see more than we actually can. After all, those are not multiple standpoints or ultimate standpoint that location at the tower offers. It is still one standpoint and moving up and down the floors offer just a different angle for the short glimpse that could be cought by the eye. The same goes for the perspective of the story from Torre David which attempts to claim that it includes more than it actually can, by providing brief selected extracts of politcal context, economic context as well as extracts from contemporary urban debates and ideas and promote their universal application. Neverthless it is a significant work and story where the qualities outweight the disadvantages and which attempts to mach the significance of the tower itself in many aspects. Ironically even the price for the book (45 €) offered by the publisher (Lars Müller Publishers) matches the number of the floors of Torre David
October 26, 2022
Super interessant!
En veel prentjes hehe
En veel prentjes hehe
October 31, 2017
The study on Torre David is informative, interesting, and full of the most amazing pictures. Highly recommend to those interested in architecture and the repurposing of old buildings. Torre David is also an interesting look at how micro communities can evoke.
December 21, 2020
Highly recommend it to anyone interested in architecture and learning more about how informal communities can develop when government can't the required help.
March 28, 2014
In Caracas stands an unfinished 45-story skyscraper, called Torre David. Despite the physical shortcomings it has become an improvised, continually revised home to more than 750 families. Urban-Think Tank, an interdisciplinary design practice, spent over a year studying the physical structure and the social organization that turned this ruin into a ‘squatters’ home. They summarized this process - were the planned city meets the lived city - in a wonderful book.
The most interesting thing of Torre David is the adaptive reuse of an existing building. And especially the way it’s done. Soon after the first occupation people were cleaning the floors together and security guards were stationed at the three actively used entrances. The pioneers organized a fair distribution of the spaces, the construction of balustrades and painted the communal spaces (entrance and stairwell). Two water pumps were installed to connect the tower to the city’s water system. People managed to erect basic walls that separate them from neighbors and to fence off balconies. Later some people put in bathrooms and small kitchens. Residents also broke through existing walls to create new pathways for movement.
In addition to the houses there are also a number of shops and common spaces in the Tower. There is a barbershop, cybercafé, beauty salon, small factories, a auto workshop and some floors have their own grocery. In an adjacent building a church is build. On the ground level is a large basketball-court. The court is well regulated. It’s forbidden to swear or to play without sportswear. On the 28th floor there is a small gym. “That same floor has an extended balcony […] where some of the woman often bring couches and chairs to socialize.” But the biggest informal place are the stairs. “Since the one accessible stairway in the highrise is the only means of vertical circulation within that structure, sooner or later everyone passes everyone else.” There is one alternative to travel. Soon after the occupation a motor taxi service arose that uses the connected parking garage to takes residents up to the 10th floor.
In the book you will find a lot of beautiful photographs from the Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan that gives a great insight in these living conditions.
More on: www.urbanspringtime.blogspot.nl/2014/...
The most interesting thing of Torre David is the adaptive reuse of an existing building. And especially the way it’s done. Soon after the first occupation people were cleaning the floors together and security guards were stationed at the three actively used entrances. The pioneers organized a fair distribution of the spaces, the construction of balustrades and painted the communal spaces (entrance and stairwell). Two water pumps were installed to connect the tower to the city’s water system. People managed to erect basic walls that separate them from neighbors and to fence off balconies. Later some people put in bathrooms and small kitchens. Residents also broke through existing walls to create new pathways for movement.
In addition to the houses there are also a number of shops and common spaces in the Tower. There is a barbershop, cybercafé, beauty salon, small factories, a auto workshop and some floors have their own grocery. In an adjacent building a church is build. On the ground level is a large basketball-court. The court is well regulated. It’s forbidden to swear or to play without sportswear. On the 28th floor there is a small gym. “That same floor has an extended balcony […] where some of the woman often bring couches and chairs to socialize.” But the biggest informal place are the stairs. “Since the one accessible stairway in the highrise is the only means of vertical circulation within that structure, sooner or later everyone passes everyone else.” There is one alternative to travel. Soon after the occupation a motor taxi service arose that uses the connected parking garage to takes residents up to the 10th floor.
In the book you will find a lot of beautiful photographs from the Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan that gives a great insight in these living conditions.
More on: www.urbanspringtime.blogspot.nl/2014/...
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