Modernity at its Best

VIEWED IN CARACAS BACK IN THE 1950S AS A TOKEN OF INNOVATION, NOW NEARLY 65 YEARS LATER THE TORRES DE EL SILENCIO (THE SILENCE TOWERS) CONTINUE TO BE A MUST-SEE FOR THOSE WHO TRAVEL TO THE SOCALLED “CITY OF EVERLASTING SPRING”

It's true they don't look as great anymore as when they awed both Caracas and Venezuela all of a sudden, when the country and the city took them as their most representative icon of modernity. The 32-story Silence Towers standing at 103 meters tall, opened officially on December 6, 1954 as a proof that the nation had traded its farming past for an industrialized condition.

They were built as part of a project entitled Rotival Plan that sought to implement the city's necessary renovation, ready to transform its downtown area and become an attractive South American capital. The El Silencio residential compound is the brainchild of Carlos Raul Villanueva's urban development.

It all began with the paving of the Bolivar Avenue that back in those days required the foundation of a company that eventually led to the Centro Simon Bolivar C.A, and that later on was shaped like twin towers: the North Tower (20.35 meters wide) and the South Tower (23.25 meters wide), originally designed for trade and services. They were born with just a handful of unseen elements until then, such as the parking lot floors and a number of pay phones.

Indeed, nearly 65 years after their grand opening, the Torres de El Silencio are no longer stared at as the esthetic token they were in the past. However, and amid the visible and advanced deterioration they now have, these buildings that came out of architect Cipriano Castro Dominguez's drawing board, with the collaboration of Tony Manrique de Lara and Jose Joaquin Alvarez, continue to be a must-see for those who travel to the socalled “city of everlasting spring.”