Shapes of the Future

Manhattan has its skyscrapers, Paris its Eiffel Tower, but the hilltops of Caracas in Venezuela will soon be capped with a pair of architectural shapes that are calculated to match any man-made wonders anywhere. One is Brazilian Architect Oscar Niemeyer's art museum in the form of an inverted pyramid, scheduled for completion at the end of next year. The other is a self-contained commercial city that looks like a stack of flying saucers in close formation flight. With foundation work already under way last week, the center should be open for business some time in 1960.

Architect Jorge Romero Gutierrez calls his bold new city a "helicoid" (a form describing a spiral in space). Its main lines consist of two continuous spirals, one going up, the other down, providing access for auto traffic along 2 1/2 miles of concrete ramps. Placed atop a hill in the center of Caracas, it will fit like a snug concrete and glass cap overlooking the downtown business area. Says Romero: "I got the idea one morning at breakfast starting out with the premise that Le Corbusier's principle of vertical construction was decadent."

Inside the $25 million structure, to be cooperatively owned by its tenants, will be 300 business and industrial offices. In addition, space will be allotted to restaurants, bowling alleys, movies, a hotel, an exhibition hall, parking lots, Turkish baths, a television station, and even a heliport. The income they bring in from fees and rentals will provide the co-owners' maintenance fund.

A few miles across the city is the hilltop site for Architect Niemeyer's upended pyramid. The exposed and dominating location demanded simplicity, he says, "something that would stand out in daring purity against the landscape." The shape was dictated by the art museum's need for light, with more space required on top where the exhibition floor is to be. The light is automatically filtered down through louvers electronically controlled so that the proper degree of illumination is maintained continuously. Not the least important of Architect Niemeyer's purposes is to strike people who come to his museum with "the surprise and the emotion resulting from a violent contrast between a sealed exterior and an interior flooded with daylight."

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