The thoughts of Phil Gusack

Below is an extract of a piece written by renowned architect, designer, and author Phil Gusack regarding the Vertical City project.

"If, as Robert Hughes proposed, line item 1 on the modernist agenda was that the new should shock, the Desitecture collective’s Vertical City slots them into the mainstream. Yes the 180-storey geometric slight-of-hand would need its water supply dosed with valium to make life for residents with vertigo a tad more sustainable, but you only have to peek into the world’s bathroom cabinets to conclude that modernism and medication go hand in hand anyway.

What is sad is not that Desitecture just spent too much time on this scheme, but the consternation it seems to have provoked that anyone should bother to try anything pro bono public in a time when the avant-garde of the 1980’s won’t get out of bed unless it’s Goldman Sachs or former KGB potentates at the door.  But Vertical City is not just a stab at slum clearance in Caracas: it’s a salute to long-overdue change in Venezuela.  Hugo Chavez may have the Fox News viewers of Florida practicing at the range, but at least he’s pulling his country out of its Spanish colonial coma.

Who can say what Venezuela, Bolivia or Brazil will be like in twenty years time?  Their populations and politicians only know their futures have to be better than the past.  In this context, carping designboom bloggers could take another look at the lineage of inspirational draftsmen: Sant'Elia, Frank Lloyd Wright, Corbusier, Costa and Niemeyer, Cedric Price and Archigram.  They all drew pro bono.  Who knows if Desitecture will end up in the heroic top ten, but they aren’t too timid to try."

PHIL GUSACK

Shortlisted

We have been shortlisted in the Future projects section at World Architecture Festival!! This is great news.....the project can also been seen here at designboom! Let us know your views and opinions!

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/11088/desitecture-vertical-city-venezuela.html