Caracas

Introduction

The capital of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is located at the north of the country, separated from the Caribbean Sea by the Coast Range. Decades after Columbus encountered Venezuela’s mainland in 1498, the Caracas valley’s favorable location made it a military outpost along the Spanish conquerors’ eastward penetration. Diego de Losada allegedly founded the city in 1567, named Santiago de León de Caracas, the latter after the Indians who inhabited the region where the Caracas plant grew. Having been a second-rate capital of the Spanish empire, Caracas did not undergo significant change during the colonial era that ended in 1821. The 1812 earthquake and the independence and civil wars made the population stagnate from about 30,000 inhabitants in 1830 to almost 50,000 in 1873, when the first national census took place. Post-colonial sluggishness slightly changed with the governments of Antonio Guzmán Blanco (1870–1888), who Europeanized the architectural vocabulary and cultural traditions of the up to then Spain-oriented city. As the capital of an unattractive republic that exported coffee and cocoa, Caracas remained a commercial and bureaucratic outpost until the emergence of the oil economy in the 1920s. Thereafter demographic recovery manifested, with population jumping to 135,253 by 1926; meanwhile, the center crowded with commerce and tenant houses, prompting the bourgeoisie’s immigration to eastern suburbs. When Juan Vicente Gómez’s 27-year dictatorship ended with his death in 1935, the capital showed the urban effects of the petroleum boom: with a population of 203,342 and an extension of 542 hectares by 1936, rural-urban migration boosted the 45 percent demographic increase. Effects of the oil revolution were accentuated in the 1950s, when international migration flooded the sprawling metropolis, modernized by Pérez Jiménez’s public works. The main demographic increase occurred between 1961 and 1981, when population in the metropolitan area passed from 1,336,464 to 2,879,468; thousands of immigrants from southern and central Europe came to the cosmopolitan capital—also a democratic refuge for exiles from Latin American dictatorships. This attraction changed after the financial crisis started in 1983, and especially after the Caracazo—the 1989 revolts against neoliberal measures implemented at the beginning of Carlos Andrés Pérez’s second presidency. This episode unleashed political and economic instability in Caracas, especially during the Bolivarian Revolution launched by Hugo Chávez in 1999; the violent metropolis has been torn by tensions between remaining capitalism, emerging socialism, and anti-global reactions.

General Overviews

The fourth centenary of the city, commemorated in 1967, was a distinctive year for initiating overviews such as the multi-volume Estudio de Caracas (Universidad Central de Venezuela 1967) published by several specialists of the Central University on the city’s demography, environment, history, economics, government, and social and cultural aspects. Less comprehensive yet covering the city’s entire history from colonial times, other overviews ranged from the plans and graphic information compiled by De-Sola Ricardo 1967, to the narrative Meneses 1966, followed by Gasparini and Posani 1969 on urban growth and architecture. The increasingly specialized literature on the city made it difficult to offer further general overviews, as the bibliographic compendium Carrero 1979 evinced. Perhaps as a reaction to this bibliographic dispersion, an attempt, coordinated by Arráiz and Niño 2004, emulated the classic architectural review Gasparini and Posani 1969, but now including scenarios about the city’s urban growth and planning proposals. Also as an attempt to put a growing bibliography in perspective, Waale 2010 offers a selection of the most significant books about the city’s history, environment, and literature. In the domain of radio and online resources, a multifaceted overview of the current metropolis in relation to its past and from the perspectives of different disciplines and arts—sociology, economics, urban planning, literature, architecture, among others—is available through the series of interviews compiled in La ciudad deseada.

Arráiz, Rafael, and William Niño, eds. Santiago de León de Caracas 1567–2030. Caracas: Exxon Mobil de Venezuela, Editorial Arte, 2004.
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The first part of the large-format volume provides historical chapters on the city’s evolution since colonial times, elaborated by period specialists who combine primary sources with excellent illustrations. The second part features the city’s plans and scenarios of urban growth drawn from interviews with experts.
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Carrero, María, ed. Aportes para una Bibliografía sobre Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Instituto Autónomo Biblioteca Nacional y de Servicios de Bibliotecas, Gobernación del Distrito Federal, 1979.
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Despite its remote date of publication, this guide remains a useful reference work, especially for including hemerografía—i.e., newspaper and journal articles—that was difficult to put together in the pre-digital era. It also includes a corpus of early-20th-century chroniclers that are long since out of print.
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De-Sola Ricardo, Irma. Contribución al estudio de los planos de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Ediciones del Cuatricentenario de Caracas, 1967.
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In an extensive oblong format, this compilation features 135 plans of the city from Pimentel’s 1578 sketch through 1960s subdivisions of the metropolitan area. The collection is completed by thirty-five maps of the Caracas “province” and “state” that successively integrated Venezuelan territory in colonial and republican times.
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Gasparini, Graziano, and Juan Pedro Posani. Caracas a través de su arquitectura. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Fina Gómez, 1969.
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This was the first academic approach to the city’s urban and architectural history since colonial times, distinguishing the morphological and stylistic renewal of Guzmán Blanco’s capital, followed by the modernistic image that emerged from the oil boom and Pérez Juménez’s public works.
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La ciudad deseada.
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Resulting from the radio program hosted by William Niño and Federico Vegas since the 1990s, this blog compiles penetrating interviews with artists and specialists on Caracas. Since the program is no longer on the air, the much-visited website has become a useful source on urban topics, especially for students.
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Meneses, Guillermo. Caracas en la novela venezolana. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Eugenio Mendoza, 1966.
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Though nowadays insufficient—given its early date of publication—this essay remains the first attempt to sample the narrative imagery about the city since the late 19th century through the 1950s, with excerpts from the chronicles and novels.
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Universidad Central de Venezuela. Estudio de Caracas. 8 vols. Caracas, Venezuela: Ediciones de la Biblioteca, 1967.
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Volumes deal with the physical environment and population; historical framework, technology, and economy; ecology; family organization and social stratification; religious, cultural, and intellectual life; personality, education, and linguistics; health and social problems; and government and politics. Most of those subjects refer to the metropolitan structure of the 1960s.
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Waale, Ricardo. Libros de Caracas: Apreciaciones sobre algunos libros significativos de la ciudad. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Bancaribe, 2010.
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Resulting from an exhibition organized in 2007, on the 440th anniversary of Caracas, this catalogue provides a debatable yet substantial selection of sixty-six books focused on the city. They include architecture and urbanism, natural environment, history and chronicle, photography, gastronomy, literature, and music.
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History and Chronicle

In a style that often mixes with the chronicle, most general histories of the city were written before the 1980s, prior to the specialization of urban studies that took place in Venezuelan universities in the 1990s. Despite their overall views, representatives of this trend adopt different genres and emphasize several aspects: Núñez 1988 and Meneses 1995 emulate the example of Rojas 1988 and 19th-century chroniclers, whereas Arellano 1972 focuses on legal aspects in a more historical tone. Very much influenced by the periodization established in Venezuela’s political history, Polanco 1983 and Troconis 1993 continue these overviews with more historical background and increasing use of primary sources and secondary literature. From then on, while urban history emerged as an academic field, a relative specialization by topics and periods was configured, distinguishing between the Colonial Era and the Republican Period. Overall historical approaches have thereafter been represented solely in the collective work Arráiz and Niño 2004, cited under General Overviews, whereas the chronicle tradition has been revisited by Arráiz 1999.

Arellano, Antonio. Caracas, su evolución y su régimen legal. Madrid: Edime, 1972.
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Spanning from its foundation through the metropolitan expansion, the city’s “evolution” is mainly recreated through travelers’ impressions and “illustrious sons” born in Caracas. The final emphasis on the legal framework mirrors the importance that the administration of the sprawling metropolis had by the time of the book’s publication.
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Arráiz, Rafael, ed. Cuatro lecturas de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundarte, 1999.
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A selection of texts about Caracas previously published by four of Venezuela’s most distinguished essayists: Arturo Uslar Pietri, Mariano Picón Salas, Juan Liscano, and José Ignacio Cabrujas. Their insightful impressions and memories frame the city’s transformation throughout its history, including natural landscape, architecture, lifestyle, and poverty.
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Meneses, Guillermo. Libro de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundarte, 1995.
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Originally published in 1967, on the celebrations of the city’s 400th anniversary, the book has a literary style close to traditional chronicle and influenced by Meneses’s career as novelist. Miscellaneous materials from colonial and early republican time prevail over modern history.
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Núñez, Enrique Bernardo. La ciudad de los techos rojos. Caracas, Venezuela: Monte Ávila, 1988.
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Originally published in two volumes between 1947 and 1949—while Núñez was the city’s official chronicler—it coined the image of “red roofs.” This was drawn from the tejas or tiles that characterized the skyline of central Caracas until the metropolitan expansion that ends the book’s historical narrative.
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Polanco, Tomás. Historia de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Comisión del Bicentenario del Libertador, 1983.
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It neatly distinguishes episodes resulting from proper urban change, such as Guzmán’s renewal based on public works, from the Belle Époque ethos that ensued. Following the historiography of the period, it also echoes a cliché borrowed from political history: namely that Caracas was “asleep” during Gómez’s dictatorship.
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Rojas, Arístides. Crónica de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Ministerio de Educación, 1988.
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Originally published between 1890 and 1891 as part of the Leyendas históricas or Historic Legends, Rojas’s cuadros costumbristas or genre scenes, most of them from the colonial era and early republic, became an exemplar for urban chroniclers up to the 1970s.
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Troconis, Ermila. Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Grijalbo, 1993.
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Still relying on the periodization of political history, this was the last attempt by one author to summarize the city’s entire history, including for the first time the aftermath of the 1989 Caracazo. Some of the primary sources were commented at the end and the bibliography was innovative by the time.
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Colonial Era

Perhaps because of the city’s relative obscurity until 1777, when it became the capital of the General Captaincy of Venezuela, the colonial history of Caracas has been seldom revisited. Among the colonial chroniclers who wrote about the Venezuelan territory and history altogether—as it occurred in part of the Travel Literature—Oviedo y Baños (Oviedo y Baños 1971 and Oviedo y Baños 2004) was the one to devote most attention to the province of Caracas. Father Nectario María (Nectario María 2004) was the first to compile and analyze texts about the conquest and successive foundations of the city up to 1567. The influence of the Law of Indies—promulgated in 1573 by Philip II of Spain in order to regulate the occupation of the territory and the foundation of cities—has been revisited in the first part of Gasparini and Posani 1969 (cited under General Overviews) and Brewer-Carías 1997. By contrast with early colonial obscurity, the relative prosperity and dynamics of 18th-century Caracas—cradle of Simon Bolívar, the Liberator, and the fight for Hispanic American independence—can be traced through the testimony of Díaz 2012 as a primary source. In secondary literature, McKinley 2002 offers an exploration in social, political, and economic terms, Díaz Legorburu 1983 examines the capital’s landmarks, and Salazar Bravo 2002 covers this period in relation to municipal regulations and urbanism.

Brewer-Carías, Allan R. La ciudad ordenada. Madrid: Instituto Pascual Madoz, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Boletín Oficial del Estado, 1997.
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Framed within legal, political, and cultural aspects of the discovery, conquest, and occupation of Hispanic America altogether, the study focuses on the process of Venezuela’s provinces. Especially valuable is the incorporation at the end of the regulations given by the Spanish Crown to the conquistadors, including the Law of Indies.
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Díaz, Jose D. Recuerdos sobre la rebelión de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2012.
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Originally published in Madrid in 1829, this was one of the few reports of the independent revolution from the standpoint of a realista or sympathizer of the Spanish Crown. The critical portrayal of the Venezuelan capital’s dramatic changes is enriched by the author’s perception as physician and journalist.
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Díaz Legorburu, Raúl. La Caracas de Bolívar. Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Los Próceres, 1983.
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A lavish edition produced on the bicentenary of Simon Bolívar’s birthday, the book combines well-documented descriptions with good-quality images of 19th-century Caracas. It highlights the Plaza Mayor, the Cathedral, the San Francisco church and convent, and the Quinta Anauco among other colonial landmarks.
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McKinley, P. Michael. Pre-revolutionary Caracas: Politics, Economy, and Society, 1777–1811. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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Originally published in English in 1985, it has been edited in Spanish too. Going against the historiography’s mainstream at that time, the book shows that Caracas and Venezuela were a relatively dynamic society and thriving outpost of the Spanish empire after the Bourbon reforms initiated in the mid-18th century.
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Nectario María, Hermano. Historia de la conquista y fundación de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación para la Cultura Urbana, 2004.
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A result of cataloging the Venezuelan section of Seville’s Archivo de Indias by French-born Louis Pratlong, whose religious name became Nectario María when moving to Venezuela, the book was published in 1967. It spans from Francisco Fajardo’s first attempts to founding the city to its establishment as province and episcopate.
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Oviedo y Baños, José de. Tesoro de noticias por D. Joseph de Oviedo y Baños, vecino de la ciudad de Santiago de León de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Concejo Municipal del Distrito Federal, 1971.
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Allegedly elaborated in the 1700s at the request of the Caracas cabildo or municipal chapter, it is still debated whether the document was intended to register the governors of the province and mayors of the city, or rather to list the latter’s religious festivities. There was another edition in 1967.
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Oviedo y Baños, José de. Historia de la conquista y fundación de la provincia de Venezuela. Caracas, Venezuela: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2004.
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Published in 1723 in Madrid, it focused for the first time on the occupation of the provinces that later integrated the General Captaincy of Venezuela, so it is usually assumed as the earliest national book. In a vivid style, the conquest of the Province of Caracas absorbs two of the book’s five sections.
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Salazar Bravo, Rosario. Se acata y ¿se cumple? Teoría y práctica del Urbanismo en la Caracas del siglo XVIII. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundarte, 2002.
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A brief yet thorough approach to the legal authorities and planning instruments of the late Colonial era that proves the exhaustion of the Laws of Indies, despite the Bourbon reforms. The spatial segregation of social castes around the city’s center is illustrated though plans.
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Republican Period

While the republican independence did not imply immediate changes in the city’s colonial profile, Guzmán Blanco’s urban renewal from the 1870s was, as established in the Introduction, a distinct episode early addressed by Galey 1973 and Castellanos 1983 in political, legal, and cultural aspects. Backed by the academic and thematic specialization pointed out in History and Chronicle, the review of primary sources in works of the late 1980s onwards tried to prove that Caracas was not “asleep “during the Andean dictatorships that lasted until 1935, as did González Deluca 1994 in relation to commercial life and Martín Frechilla 1994 regarding public administration, infrastructure, and planning. The Venezuelan capital’s relative dynamism in demography and urban geography was explored by Stann 1975, as well as by Valery S., et al. 1990 with different timespans. On those grounds, the continuity of those early reforms with the metropolitan structure and alleged modernity of 20th-century Caracas has been established overall from González Casas 1996 through Almandoz 2012.

Almandoz, Arturo, ed. Caracas, de la metrópoli súbita a la meca roja. Quito, Ecuador: Organización Latinoamericana y del Caribe de Centros Históricos (OLACCHI), 2012.
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This anthology connects the structure and reforms of early republican Caracas with the ensuing metropolitan dynamics, including the political instability unleashed after the 1989 Caracazo and Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution. It also includes chapters on mobility and transport, environmental quality, violence and criminality, public housing, poverty, and shantytowns.
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Castellanos, Rafael. Caracas 1883 (Centenario del natalicio del Libertador). 2 vols. Caracas, Venezuela: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1983.
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Published on the 200th commemoration of Simon Bolívar’s birthday, the volumes compile valuable primary information that catalogues the ethos of Guzmán Blanco’s capital. Especially relevant are chapters about the 1881 census; the Caracas-La Guaira railway; the accommodation facilities, light improvements, and infrastructure works; and the organization of the 1883 Exhibition.
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Galey, John. “A City Comes of Age: Caracas in the Era of Antonio Guzmán Blanco.” Boletín del Centro de Investigaciones Históricas y Estéticas 15 (1973): 77–113.
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It was the first approach to Guzmán Blanco’s urban renewal that paid attention not only to public works, but also to the legal apparatus, including laws, presidential decrees, and municipal ordinances.
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González Casas, Lorenzo. “Modernity and the City: Caracas 1935–1958.” PhD diss., Cornell University, 1996.
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The dissertation frames the modern project of Caracas within the oil-based economy and the progressive policies during the ten-year democratic renewal after Gómez’s death, followed by Pérez Jiménez’s so-called Nuevo Ideal Nacional (New National Ideal). The theoretical discussion about modernity helps to set the Caracas case in international perspective.
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González Deluca, María Elena. Los comerciantes de Caracas: Cien años de acción y testimonio de la Cámara de Comercio de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Cámara de Comercio de Caracas, 1994.
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From the 1894 constitution and changes of the Chamber of Commerce in Caracas, it mirrors one century of the city’s and the country’s economic history. It contains detailed information about major enterprises and professional associations.
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Martín Frechilla, Juan J. Planes, planos y proyectos para Venezuela: 1908–1958 (Apuntes para una historia de la construcción del país). Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, Fondo Editorial Acta Científica Venezolana, 1994.
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This is a vast compilation of primary material—laws, plans, budgets, and urban policies—of Venezuela’s urban project from the Gómez regime through the first administrations of the oil-based economy, especially Pérez Jiménez’s dictatorship. Deals with the country as a whole, but the capital holds a preeminent position.
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Stann, Eugene Jeffrey. “Caracas, Venezuela, 1891–1936: A Study of Urban Growth.” PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 1975.
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It early visited a period that was neglected at that time in the Caracas historiography: when the city was assumed to be stagnated and dormant after Guzmán Blanco’s reforms. On the contrary, the author demonstrated that metropolitan growth was based on the dynamics and changes of the pre-oil era.
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Valery S., Rafael, Marta Vallmitjana A., and Alberto Morales Tucker. Estudio de Caracas: Evolución del patrón urbano desde la fundación de la ciudad hasta el período petrolero, 1567–1936. Caracas: Instituto de Urbanismo, Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1990.
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This was the first attempt to see the pre-metropolitan history of Caracas a whole, with emphasis on the Gómez era that ended in 1935. The large-format volume gathers valuable information about demography, urban growth and land use, illustrated through a series of plans.
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Travel Literature

Especially after the historiography’s 1990s renewal referred to in History and Chronicle, compilations and cultural studies based on travelers passing by or foreigners staying in Caracas have informed a significant chapter of the city’s bibliography. Travel literature obviously existed prior to that renewal, as is shown in the travelers catalogued by García Castro 1997 in the last volume of the Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela, which is perhaps the main reference work on the subject. Since colonial times, countless visitors left their impressions about the Venezuelan capital, as a part of bigger works on the country or Latin America; among them, Alexander von Humboldt (Humboldt 1993) stands out as the most renowned, inaugurating a list of modern visitors that was enlarged and studied by Venegas Filardo 1991. Fewer writers, however, focused their impressions on Caracas as such. After the depiction of the valley and its environs in Semple 1812 and political life in Porter 1966, the city’s portrayal in Sandford 1858 is perhaps the most picturesque, though the author’s identity remained unknown even until the edition prepared for the 400th anniversary of Caracas in 1967. The memories of Ybarra 1941 in belle epoque Caracas also became a classic among the city’s portrayals written by foreigners. This travel catalogue was to be systematically reviewed by research works undertaken in the 1990s at Venezuelan universities and cultural centers, most of them about individual visitors. General compilations representative of this trend were initiated by Pino Iturrieta and Calzadilla 1991 for the 19th century; they were followed by Becco and Espagnol 1993 for the history of Caracas and completed by García Castro 1997.

Becco, Horacio, and Carlota Espagnol, eds. La pintoresca Caracas: Descripciones de viajeros. Caracas: Fundación de Promoción Cultural de Venezuela, 1993.
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This is the sole anthology of travelers focused on Caracas and spanning from Oviedo y Baños in 1723 through Leonard Dalton in 1911. Although some texts show inaccuracies in their original dates of publication, selection of urban passages from larger works, as well as translations, are reliable overall.
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García Castro, Álvaro. “Crónicas, descripciones, informes y relaciones de viajes.” In Diccionario de Historia de Venezuela. Vol. 4. Edited by Manuel Rodríguez Campos and Sara Colmenares, 461–527. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Polar, 1997.
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Included as an appendix of the last volume of the dictionary originally published in 1989, the list registers travelers to Venezuela from the 16th through the 20th century. Information provided features places visited, year, name of the original work and type of report (scientific, literary, diplomatic, etc.).
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Humboldt, Alejandro de. Breviario del Nuevo Mundo. Translated by Lisandro Alvarado. Caracas, Venezuela: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1993.
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Compilation of texts drawn from different works of the German savant’s visit to the Americas from 1799 through 1804, it features a section about Caracas. This was comprised in Le voyage aux régions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait en 1799–1804, published between 1807 and 1834 by Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland.
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Pino Iturrieta, Elías, and Pedro E. Calzadilla, eds. La mirada del otro: Viajeros extranjeros en la Venezuela del siglo XIX. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Bigott, 1991.
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This representative selection of foreign travelers to 19th-century Venezuela highlights their impressions of Caracas. These are accompanied by excellent reproductions from the chronicles’ illustrations, alongside artistic portrayals of the city’s everyday life, belonging to Venezuela’s National Gallery and other collections.
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Porter, Sir Robert Ker. Caracas Diary, 1825–1842. A British Diplomat in a Newborn Nation. Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Arte, Fundación Otto y Magdalena Blohm, 1966.
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Edited by Walter Dupouy in English, the British consul’s 2,100-page report was also translated into Spanish in a thorough edition in 1997. Although much of the diary encompasses the Gran Colombia’s political and diplomatic life, sections about Caracas are especially interesting for recreating incipient changes in the aftermath of independence.
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Sandford, H. E. “Caracas.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine XVII.XCVIII (July 1858): 187–198.
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This is a vivid depiction of the Hispanic city prior to Guzmán Blanco’s Frenchified reforms, enhanced by engravings of the natural landscape and flat skyline. The text was translated into Spanish in the 1960s, but the author remained unknown until later.
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Semple, Robert. Sketch of the Present State of Caracas; Including a Journey from Caracas through La Victoria and Valencia to Puerto Cabello. London: Robert Baldwing, 1812.
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Inspired by his translation of Humboldt’s Voyage, the Scottish tradesman’s was the first depiction of the Caracas region for the English public, originally including another chapter about Curacao. Editions in Spanish in 1932 and 1964 confirm the echo of the book for the Venezuelan audience.
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Venegas Filardo, Pascual. Viajeros a Venezuela en los siglos XIX y XX. Caracas: Fundación de Promoción Cultural de Venezuela, 1991.
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Originally published in 1973, Venegas’s studies about foreign explorers, geographers, scientists and visitors after Alexander von Humboldt pioneered the subject of travel literature to Venezuela. Caracas is highlighted in most of the selections from the 19th and 20th centuries.
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Ybarra, Thomas Russell. Young Man of Caracas. New York: Ives Washburn, 1941.
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The Venezuelan-born American who studied at Harvard and evoked the Caracas of his childhood produced the most insightful portrayal of foreigners’ literature about the city. Also published in London, a 1969 edition in Spanish increased its popularity among Venezuelans as a traditional chronicle of turn-of-the-century Caracas.
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Sociopolitical Dynamics

While Caracas was the capital of a seemingly stable democracy until the early 1980s, sociopolitical studies focused on the city’s administration and grassroots movements of participation, as they were exemplified by Arellano 1972 (see History and Chronicle) and Geigel 1979, respectively. However, as was stated in the Introduction, the 1989 Caracazo converted the city into the epicenter of Venezuela’s political crisis, whose urban effects were early reported in García-Guadilla 1994. The increasing delinquency and political instability during the 1990s were analyzed by Sanjuán 2000 and González Téllez 2005, respectively, looking at them as factors that, at the same time, paved the way for Hugo Chávez’s arrival to power in 1999. Relying on the problems and deficiencies of the late-20th-century city, the conflicts of administration between levels of government and the deterioration of Caracas throughout Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution were reported by Negrón 2004. In this new era, special importance has been given the popular demonstrations in favor of and against Chávez, with effects on the city’s segregation and seizure of communication means and public spaces that have been analyzed by Irazábal and Foley 2008, Fernandes 2010 and García-Guadilla 2012.

Fernandes, Sujatha. Who Can Stop the Drums? Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2010.
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Intertwining “individual” and “collective histories,” the book’s ethnographic approach ranges from the social participation in the 1970s to everyday politics in the participative democracy established since 1999. The excessive importance given to the 1990s “neoliberal state” does not diminish the methodology’s contribution, especially regarding the communication means in popular barrios.
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García-Guadilla, María P. “Configuración espacial y movimientos ciudadanos.” In Las ciudades hablan: Identidades y movimientos sociales en seis metrópolis latinoamericanas. Edited by Tomás R. Villasante, 51–69. Caracas, Venezuela: Nueva Sociedad, 1994.
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A penetrating approach to social classes and movements in Caracas since colonial times, it was one of the first analyses of the spatial effects and new segregation brought about by the 1989 Caracazo. The chapter’s insertion in a collective volume about Latin America puts the Caracas case in perspective.
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García-Guadilla, María P. “Caracas: De la colonia al socialismo del siglo XXI. Espacio, clase social y movimientos ciudadanos.” In Caracas, de la metrópoli súbita a la meca roja. Edited by Arturo Almandoz, 155–196. Quito, Ecuador: Organización Latinoamericana y del Caribe de Centros Históricos (OLACCHI), 2012.
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Following the School of Chicago’s urban ecology approach, the location of most competitive activities and main social actors is outlined in the chapter from the colonial era through 2000s Caracas. Remarkable importance is given to the spatial segregation and polarization produced by Chávez’s revolution and the opposition’s reaction.
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Geigel, Nelson. La defensa de la ciudad. Caracas, Venezuela: Equinoccio, 1979.
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Pioneering approach to the neighborhood movement in 1970s Caracas, whose demands ranged from environmental awareness to life quality improvements. The author’s education as a lawyer enabled him to include two chapters about how this “defense of the city” could be channeled through the legal framework at both local and national levels.
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González Téllez, Silverio. La ciudad venezolana: Una interpretación de su espacio y sentido de la convivencia nacional. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación para la Cultura Urbana, 2005.
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The study departs from the “positive” and “negative” traditions in the city’s history, with references to Latin America and Venezuela, but the bulk of the analysis is about Caracas. Especially illustrative is the category of the “violent city” used to explain the political unrest and rising criminality from the 1990s.
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Irazábal, Clara, and John Foley. “Space, Revolution and Resistance: Ordinary Places and Extraordinary Events in Caracas.” In Ordinary Places, Extraordinary Events. Citizenship, Democracy and Public Space in Latin America. Edited by Clara Irazábal, 144–169. London and New York: Routledge, 2008.
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Well-documented analysis of the 2002 revolts that toppled Chávez from power and their sequels, despite its being slightly biased toward the government’s standpoint. A review of international literature helps to explain why Bolivarian Caracas has become a stronghold of Latin America’s “grand refusal” of neoliberalism and globalization.
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Negrón, Marco. La cosa humana por excelencia: Controversias sobre la ciudad. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación para la Cultura Urbana, 2004.
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Mainly based on press articles published from the 1990s, the book reports the city’s deficiencies in public services and problems of administration and government. Given the journalistic nature of most of the articles gathered, the sociopolitical changes of Bolivarian Caracas are especially vivid and well contrasted with previous decades.
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Sanjuán, Ana M. “Democracia, ciudadanía y violencia en Venezuela.” In Ciudadanías del miedo. Edited by Susana Rotker, 81–93. Caracas, Venezuela: Nueva Sociedad, 2000.
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Though dealing with the rising criminality of several Venezuelan cities since the 1980s, Caracas is the main stage of this pioneering chapter, based on abundant statistics and newspaper material. The inclusion in a book about Latin America helps to compare the violence problem in Caracas with other cities.
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Culture and Imageries

In addition to the literary aspects contemplated in works referred to in History and Chronicle, other cultural manifestations of the city have been approached in more specific studies, as Calcaño 1958 did with music, Pastori 1966 with poetry, and Salas 1974 with theater. Also included in general works about Venezuela’s historical periods, the capital’s culture since Guzmán Blanco’s reforms in the 1870s has been reviewed by Cartay 2003 in relation to the “urban sensitivity” and by Segnini 1987 for the Gómez era, in terms of cultural institutions and publications. Garmendia 1979 and Mendoza 1980 recreated the population variety of mid-20th-century Caracas through literary characters and everyday images. Many detailed publications about specific aspects and sectors of the Venezuelan capital have been produced in the last years, but few deal with the cultural perceptions and imageries associated with the metropolis altogether, especially since the turbulent changes of the 1990s mentioned in the Introduction. Examples of the latter include Vegas 2007, emphasizing the changing meaning of the city’s traditional icons, and Hernández 2010 regarding public spaces and the emergence of a new urbanity.

Calcaño, José A. La ciudad y su música (Crónica musical de Caracas). Caracas, Venezuela: Conservatorio Teresa Carreño, 1958.
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Following the city’s musical evolution as a thread, this self-proclaimed chronicle goes much further in relation to Venezuela’s cultural vicissitudes and idiosyncrasy throughout its history. Composed of eleven chapters and an appendix, the book is peppered with the author’s colorful prose and humoristic style, popularized in his TV programs.
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Cartay, Rafael. Fábrica de ciudadanos: La construcción de la sensibilidad urbana (Caracas 1870–1980). Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Bigott, 2003.
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This cultural study registers changes in values and attitudes for a century after Guzmán Blanco’s 1880s reforms, with special reference to women’s everyday life. The “urban sensitivity” comprises leisure, work, family, urbanity, sexuality, and morality, among other domains completed by revealing photographs from private collections and magazines.
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Garmendia, Salvador. Los pequeños seres/Los habitantes. Caracas, Venezuela: Monte Ávila, 1979.
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A joint edition of the two seminal novels, published in 1959 and 1961, by the author—a provincial immigrant himself—who first portrayed the popular characters’ encounters with the complexities of metropolitan Caracas. While most of the former novel is staged at the center, the latter moves toward superblocks and barrios.
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Hernández, Tulio, ed. Ciudad, espacio público y cultura urbana: 25 conferencias de la Cátedra Permanente de Imágenes Urbanas. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación para la Cultura Urbana, 2010.
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This compilation of lectures by Latin American and European intellectuals explores the relationship between imageries, public space, and urban culture. The book’s second and longest part is focused on 20th-century Caracas, with culture-oriented analyses of spatial, political, social, and architectural changes since 1993, when the series of lectures started.
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Mendoza, Soledad, ed. Así es Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Ateneo de Caracas, 1980.
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An oblong and large-format compendium of black-and-white photographs of 1970s Caracas, most of which were specially taken by Roberto Loscher. They mainly portray everyday life among diverse social strata and public spaces. Latin American intellectuals invited to write complementary texts include Nobel laureate García Gabriel Márquez, former resident of the city.
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Pastori, Luis. Caracas y la poesía. Caracas, Venezuela: Ediciones del Cuatricentenario de Caracas, 1966.
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Anthology of poems inspired by Caracas since Andrés Bello’s neoclassic silva (forest) and Antonio Pérez Bonalde’s romanticism through the early-1960s vanguards. In addition to the introduction and the selection of seventy-five texts, the volume is completed with a “bio-bibliographical” index of poets included.
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Salas, Carlos. Historia del teatro en Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Concejo Municipal del Distrito Federal, 1974.
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This pioneering work registers not only the city’s playhouses since the late colonial era, but also the theatrical and operatic companies that visited them until 1967, when the book was originally published. Besides architectural images, the text is enhanced by an iconography of actors, playwrights, and promotional posters.
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Segnini, Yolanda. Las luces del gomecismo. Caracas, Venezuela: Alfadil, 1987.
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Controverting the “black legend” about the obscurity of the dictatorship (1908–1935) prevailing hitherto, this study shed light on the cultural life of Juan V. Gómez’s Venezuela, with special reference to Caracas. It relies on valuable information about magazines, intellectuals and cultural institutions that had been up to then scarcely catalogued.
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Vegas, Federico. La ciudad y el deseo: Ensayos. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Bigott, 2007.
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With touches of narrative that mirror the author’s twofold background as novelist and architect—most of the forty-four essays compiled in this volume were originally published in newspapers. They explore the city’s icons and imaginaries regarding nature, architecture, politics, history, literature, and art, among other sections.
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Architecture, Urbanism, and Planning

Architectural aspects of the Colonial Era are considered by Brewer-Carías 1997 and Salazar Bravo 2002 in that section, being also revisited in the respective chapters of Arráiz and Niño 2004 (see General Overviews). After the colonial heritage that characterized the city’s image up to the 1860s, the continuity of Guzmán Blanco’s renewal of urban culture with the hygiene and housing reforms through the 1920s was demonstrated from the 1990s, resorting to an unexplored catalogue of primary sources. Examples include Martín Frechilla 1994, González Casas 1996 (see both cited under Republican Period) and Almandoz 2006. The authors of these works also reviewed the first plans for the sprawling metropolis, which had been initiated by EI Plan Rotival: La Caracas que no fue 1991, focused on the 1939 urban plan, coordinated by the French urbanist Maurice Rotival. The modern platform of public housing and urban planning was considered by López Villa 1986, Violich 1975, Martín Frechilla 1994 (cited under Republican Period), and Martín Frechilla 2004, whereas institutional and policy changes from the 1960s through the 1980s were analyzed by Fossi 1989, with special reference to the housing component. As a deficiency inherited from that era, the problem of barrios or shantytowns has been addressed by Bolívar 1995 relying on thorough surveys and by Villanueva and Baldó 1995 in terms of urban policies that led to Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution. Although the planning process of Bolivarian Caracas has not been reflected upon in a single work, it can be glimpsed at in scenarios and interviews compiled by Arráiz and Niño 2004 (see General Overviews).

Almandoz, Arturo. Urbanismo europeo en Caracas (1870–1940). Caracas, Venezuela: Equinoccio, 2006.
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Originally published in 1997, this book, based on a doctoral thesis, links Guzmán’s urban reforms with the hygiene and housing breakthroughs in belle epoque Caracas, as antecedents of the 1930s urbanism. The cultural history approach claims to intertwine, for the first time, legal and planning sources with novels and travel chronicles.
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Bolívar, Teolinda. “Urbanizadores y constructores para ser citadinos: Creaciones de vida en la necesidad.” Urbana 16–17 (1995): 31–52.
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Written by one of Venezuela’s top experts on shantytowns or barrios, the article combines their historic evolution in the metropolitan area of Caracas since the 1940s with the legal and planning obstacles—especially of land tenure and living standards—that face their equipment and “regularization.”
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EI Plan Rotival: La Caracas que no fue: 1939–1989. Un plan urbanos para Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Instituto de Urbanismo, 1991.
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A collective volume that combined for the first time primary information about the 1939 plan for Caracas—coordinated by French engineer Maurice Rotival—with studies about it. Its context, proposals, effects, and modifications are completed with models, sketches, and photographs of the capital before and after the plan.
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Fossi, Víctor. “Desarrollo urbano y vivienda: La desordenada evolución hacia un país de metrópolis.” In El caso Venezuela: Una ilusión de armonía. Edited by Moisés Naím and Ramón Piñango, 473–498. Caracas, Venezuela: Ediciones Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA), 1989.
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Part of a book about the buoyant Venezuela that declined in the late 1980s, the chapter provides an insightful balance of the country’s urban achievements and deficiencies, with special reference to Caracas. The institutional platform of urban planning emphasizes housing policies from the 1960s through the 1980s.
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López Villa, Manuel. “La arquitectura del ‘2 de Diciembre.’” Boletín del Centro de Investigaciones Históricas y Estéticas 16–17 (1986): 148–172.
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Covering much more than the case study announced in the title—which epitomized high-rise superblocks of the 1950s—this article explores the state’s housing policy in Pérez Jiménez’s modernist Caracas. The didactic text is accompanied by the buildings’ plans and sections, jointly with photographs of the original constructions.
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Martín Frechilla, Juan J. Diálogos reconstruidos para una historia de la Caracas moderna. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2004.
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A book of self-proclaimed “critical history” compiling 1990s interviews with architects, planners, and developers of modern Caracas, acting between 1930s and 1960s. The rich primary information provided by those pioneers is complemented with legal and administrative documents, plans, and proposals, alongside photographs of contemporary Caracas.
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Villanueva, Federico, and Josefina Baldó. “Tendencias de crecimiento en las zonas de barrios del Área Metropolitana de Caracas y sector Panamericana–Los Teques de la región Capital.” Urbana 16–17 (1995): 13–30.
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The article focuses on the historic growth and densification of shantytowns of the metropolitan area of Caracas and part of its eastern region, relying on first-hand information. The authors’ background as both academic researchers and policymakers enables them to provide practical guidelines for the equipment and urban renewal of barrios.
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Violich, Francis. “Caracas: Focus of the New Venezuela.” In World Capitals. Toward Guided Urbanization. Edited by H. Wentworth Eldredge, 246–292. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1975.
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Inserted in a book that provides comparative inputs about other capital cities, this chapter highlights the period between the 1940s and the mid-1970s, when Caracas experienced its highest growth. The city’s projects, instruments, and institutions are also compared with other Latin American metropolises, given the author’s trajectory as a planning consultant.
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Environment

In view of its metropolitan sprawl and life-quality deterioration since the 1960s, the city’s natural and built environment was analyzed early from the perspective of urban ecology by Geigel 1976, whereas the physical and social problems were discussed from a journalistic standpoint by Buitrago Segura 1980. A historical review of the Caracas environment from the perspective of urban geography was undertaken by Perna 1981, which provided inputs for the psychological research on the city’s perceived environment, carried out by Mejías 1992. Despite environmental conflicts pinpointed in those studies, the city’s exuberant nature retained the attention of the botanical survey by Hoyos 1990, while the imposing Avila Mountain that separates Caracas from the Caribbean Sea was approached by Manara 1998 from its different meanings. Keeping with the growing complexity of the notion of environment, a more comprehensive approach to the Caracas scene, considering natural landscape and urban planning variables, alongside new techniques of observation and survey, was pulled off by the team of Caracas cenital (Rocco 2004).

Buitrago Segura, Luis. Caracas: La horrible. Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Ateneo de Caracas, 1980.
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A journalistic denouncement of the city’s environmental deterioration in the 1970s, it was too gloomy yet representative of the emerging awareness about the subject. The book is made up of eleven interviews with planners, architects, scientists, sociologists, and intellectuals that provided an interdisciplinary approach and anticipated scenarios of development.
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Geigel, Nelson. El ambiente de Caracas: Una introducción a la ecología urbana. Caracas: Sociedad Venezolana de Ciencias Naturales, 1976.
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A pioneering study carried out from the perspective and methodologies of urban ecology. The book’s structure contains a historical framework, the “degradation” in the natural context and the evaluation of the “urban habitat.” Variables of the two latter also include historical records, graphic material, and excellent photographs by Charles Brewer-Carías.
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Hoyos, Jesús. Los árboles de Caracas. Caracas, Venezuela: Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales La Salle, 1990.
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Cataloguing all the species of autochthonous and imported trees existing in the Caracas valley and indicating their ornamental uses are the main purposes of this study carried out by a botanist. Accompanied by detailed photographs, information includes the scientific and popular denominations of the 328 species grouped in 65 families.
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Manara, Bruno. El Ávila: Biografía de una montaña. Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Cultural Chacao, 1998.
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Looking at Waraira Repano—the Indians’ name for de the mountain—from different perspectives, the book’s chapters of environmental relevance include the geological evolution of the Cordillera de la Costa, alongside the fauna and flora surrounding the city. The Ávila’s representation in painting and literature is also remarkable.
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Mejías, Luis A. Caracas como la ve su gente. Caracas, Venezuela: Academia Nacional de Ciencias Económicas, 1992.
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A unique research into environmental psychology that assumes Caracas as “a geographic and psycho-social problem”; it was aimed at producing cognitive maps. These were structured in terms of paths, borders, districts, nodes, and landmarks, among other categories that provided meanings of the metropolitan structure to its inhabitants.
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Perna, Claudio. Evolución de la geografía urbana de Caracas. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1981.
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A well-illustrated study of Caracas elaborated from the perspective of urban geography, spanning from colonial times to the metropolitan expansion of the 1970s. This last episode is highlighted for raising a series of environmental issues that were being discussed in the press by that time.
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Rocco, Nicola, photographer. Caracas cenital. Caracas, Venezuela: Editorial Arte, 2004.
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Relying on Nicola Rocco’s aerial photographs of Caracas, this collective volume features the historical process of urbanization, followed by the different “landscapes” and segregation districts contained in the metropolitan structure. The big format and lavish images facilitate the reader’s understanding of the city’s natural and built environment.
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Metropolitan Administration and Public Services

Although the administration and public services of the colonial and early republican city appear in several of the studies included in History and Chronicle, as well as in Architecture, Urbanism, and Planning, the problems caused by the metropolitan expansion have gained significant presence in the literature since the 1960s. Partly relying on the comprehensive diagnosis provided by the Estudio de Caracas (Universidad Central de Venezuela 1967), the former Oficina Municipal de Planeamiento Urbano (OMPU, Municipal Bureau of Urban Planning) carried out the thorough survey Oficina Municipal de Planeamiento Urbano 1972, in which the administrative problems were strongly associated with the lack of coordination between municipios or counties in order to render public services. Meanwhile the Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Comunidad (FUNDACOMÚN, Foundation for the Community’s Development) carried out a thorough survey of barrios or shantytowns in Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Comunidad y Fomento Municipal 1979, including administrative problems and deficiencies of services. The legal concurrences and voids between municipal competences and jurisdictions were also addressed by Arellano 1972 (cited under History and Chronicle) and Geigel 1993. Both issues of metropolitan administration and public services intertwine in the series of articles in Negrón 2004 (cited under Sociopolitical Dynamics), where deficiencies in several services were attributed to the discrepancies and conflicts between the metropolitan and municipal authorities amid the polarization of Bolivarian Caracas. Especially vulnerable within the metropolitan administration has been the service of public transport, whose historical deficiencies and present-day challenges have been analyzed by Mundó 2007. A panorama of the Venezuelan capital’s current projects, shortages and administrative conflicts can be seen in the websites of the Alcaldía Metropolitana de Caracas (Metropolitan Mayoralty of Caracas) and the Instituto de Urbanismo (Institute of Urbanism) of Venezuela’s Central University.

Alcaldía Metropolitana de Caracas.
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Didactic for undergraduates, the website of the official body responsible for the metropolitan administration explains legal competences and administrative units involved. Among the latter, the Metropolitan Institute of Urbanism and Workshop Caracas (IMUTC) and the Metropolitan Institute of the Caracas Transport (INMETRA), both of which carry forward planning initiatives, stand out.
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Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Comunidad y Fomento Municipal. Inventario nacional de barrios: Estudio diagnóstico de los barrios urbanos de Venezuela. 8 vols. Caracas, Venezuela: FUNDACOMUN, 1979.
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Most volumes refer to the barrios in the metropolitan district, providing valuable statistics and data about urban poverty, public services, and infrastructure amelioration in mid-20th-century Caracas. Fundacomún’s role for local communities was fundamental prior to Venezuela’s decentralization of municipal administration that took place in 1989.
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Geigel Lope-Bello, Nelson. Urbanismo, poder público y participación ciudadana. Caracas, Venezuela: Equinoccio, 1993.
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In a didactic way, the book explains the management and implementation of urbanism within Venezuela’s national and local administrations. The concurrences and voids between those levels help to understand the problems of Caracas, especially regarding public services.
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Instituto de Urbanismo.
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Founded in 1967, the Central University’s Institute of Urbanism is among Venezuela’s oldest academic units carrying out urban research, focused to a great extent on the administration and public services of metropolitan Caracas. Especially relevant for students is Urbana, the IU’s academic journal, which is now available on the website.
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Mundó Tejada, Josefina. “Definición de un modelo conceptual para el sistema de transporte público del DMC.” PhD diss., Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), 2007.
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A thorough approach to the Caracas public transport as part of the metropolitan transport system regarded in its relationship with mobility and with excellent support of statistics and maps. Reports from experiences in other Latin American cities help to put the case of Caracas in perspective.
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Oficina Municipal de Planeamiento Urbano del Distrito Federal (OMPU). Plan General Urbano de Caracas 1970–1990. 2 vols. Caracas, Venezuela: OMPU, 1972.
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Although it was carried out for the purpose of a plan that is no longer valid, the survey about public services was valuable, considering the multidisciplinary team and primary information supporting its elaboration. This study remains a historical source for the urban problems and service deficits of 1960s Caracas.
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Universidad Central de Venezuela. Estudio de Caracas. 8 vols. Caracas, Venezuela: Ediciones de la Biblioteca, 1967.
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As part of a comprehensive approach about the capital, volume 7 focuses on health, social problems, and sanitary shortages, whereas volume 8 deals with administrative problems of the 1960s metropolis. Especially the latter detected interferences and voids among municipalities, paving the way for more specific studies of the following decades.
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