Born in Spain, Guillermo de Torre (1900–71) was a poet, an essayist, and an art and literary critic; he was a member of the famous Generación del 27. This essay was originally published in the illustrated supplement of La Nación, the Buenos Aires newspaper, under the title “Tres ciudades universitarias: Puerto Rico, México y Caracas”. It was then reprinted in ABC, the Madrid newspaper, where it was abridged to exclude the part about Puerto Rico. Finally, the section devoted to the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas was published in El Nacional de Caracas, now titled: “Triunfo de la arquitectura funcional y de la plástica abstracta en la Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas.” In the ABC version published in Madrid, de Torre compares the two major Latin American universities, which—although similar in some ways—are more different than they are alike. The UNAM and Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas campuses reflect very different ideas.
The UNAM is mainly intent on reclaiming Pre-Colombian Mexico’s traditional artistic expressions, whereas the Caracas campus is thoroughly steeped in non-figurative modern abstract art. In de Torre’s opinion, the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas is one of the major expressions of “artistic synthesis” to be found in contemporary art and functional architecture. It is here that abstract art comes into its own; for that to happen, however, it must be part of the seminal idea so that it becomes an integral part of the project and inhabits every aspect of the architectural whole. This concept was brilliantly expressed and then implemented by Carlos Raúl Villanueva (1900–75) in all his thinking and his works. De Torre’s essay is essential reading for those who would understand certain facets of the Ciudad Universitaria’s “artistic synthesis” because, by comparing the Caracas campus to other projects in Latin America, Villanueva’s avant-garde ideas can be seen, in all their magnificence, as part of contemporary functional architecture and modern art in general. The differences and similarities between the Ciudad Universitaria and comparable projects reveal its true meaning. From a slightly different perspective, it should be noted that the arrangement of the buildings in the Ciudad Universitaria—which de Torre describes as “orchestral”—is mentioned by other authors, such as Antonio Muiño Loureda in his essay “Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas: una Síntesis de las Artes Plásticas” [doc. no. 864275].