Page 13 - Vertical City

INTRODUCTION 13

Recent comments by the architect Léon Krier 10,
known for his vision of the classical city and its indiffe-
rence to nature, make one wonder.

Or yet, with the addition of an increase in conflict
and exacerbation of social inequality, will one-level
constructions of slums and other refugee camps
become the norm?

One hopes not because the one-level city devours
much-needed agricultural land as well as leading to
social exclusion due to the non-inter-connectivity of
the constructions. Indeed, and as we shall analyze in
Chapter II, the cost of every type of network, including
transportation, expands alarmingly along with the size
of the monocentric city, particularly if its constructions
are “low” level.

The squatting of the “Torre David” in Caracas 11 with
its 121.000 m2, 45 stories above ground level, 12 stories
underground (with no elevators, electricity, potable
water, or sewers) that began in 1994 to house more
than 3,600 inhabitants is still an isolated case 12. It illus-
trates, however, human resilience, and also the potential
of more secure vertical slums (with several reservations

10 “The Angst of Backwardness and its consequences” in The Architec-
tural Review, no.1405, March 2014, pp.83-87.

11 Designed in 1990 to be the Venezuelan “World Trade Center”
baptized “Centro Financiero Confinanzas” the site was abandoned
in 1994 following on the bankruptcy of its developers. Numerous
articles are published on this subject on the Web.

12 Countless buildings of less than 10 to 20 stories are squatted around
the world because of forfeiture and house small vertical commun-
ities.