KEY WORDS AND ABSTRACT

KEY WORDS

KEY WORDS

MAGIC- AL REALISM

An artistic genre that infuses reality with magical elements

ADAPT- IVERE- USE

The act of making something suitable for a different purpose than its original intention

META- MORPHO- SIS

A moment of physical development leading to a complete change of form, structure, or substance

PERC- EPTION

The way in which something is seen and understood to be

INT- ENTION

The act of determining the purpose of an action

CROSS- HATCH

The overlapping of two separate entities

ACTUAL-

ITY

A condition of existence.

The presence of something in reality

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ABSTRACT

1. ABSTRACT

How does a city go from being a Latin American powerhouse to extreme poverty in a contemporary environment? Caracas, Venezuela went, and is still going through, that very transition. Once a city of wealth, luxury, and unquestionable natural beauty, the identity of the city has morphed through socialism, greed, and power hungry dictatorships. Through my dissertation, I will compare the current architectural climate in Caracas with the artistic movement of magical realism, and begin to speculate how architecture and the role of the architect, in the city can influence the attitude of the people in order to transform itself. Caracas itself is a diverse city with two faces, the formal and the informal. Architects have used Caracas as an experimental playground, leaving a series of empty monumental formal structures lying dormant.

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