Torre David Cover

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Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner (eds.)

Torre David

Informal Vertical Communities

Torre David, a 45-story skyscraper in Caracas, has remained uncompleted since the Venezuelan economy collapsed in 1994. Between 2007 and 2014, it became the improvised home to more than 750 families living in an extra-legal and tenuous squat, that some have called a “vertical slum.”

The multi-disciplinary research group Urban-Think Tank spent a year studying the physical and social organization of this ruin-become home. Richly illustrated with photographs by Iwan Baan, their book documents the residents’ occupation of the tower and how, in the absence of formal infrastructure, they organize themselves to provide for daily needs. The authors of this thought-provoking work investigate informal vertical communities and the architecture that supports them and issue a call for action: to see in informal settlements a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of putting design in service to a more equitable and sustainable future.

Torre David, a 45-story skyscraper in Caracas, has remained uncompleted since the Venezuelan economy collapsed in 1994. Between 2007 and 2014, it became the improvised home to more than 750 families living in an extra-legal and tenuous squat, that some have called a “vertical slum.”

The multi-disciplinary research group Urban-Think Tank spent a year studying the physical and social organization of this ruin-become home. Richly illustrated with photographs by Iwan Baan, their book documents the residents’ occupation of the tower and how, in the absence of formal infrastructure, they organize themselves to provide for daily needs. The authors of this thought-provoking work investigate informal vertical communities and the architecture that supports them and issue a call for action: to see in informal settlements a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of putting design in service to a more equitable and sustainable future.

Winner of the 50 Books/50 Covers Competition 2012

"The book, my book of the year, is a breathtaking document of human society and human ingenuity."

– Rowan Moore, Observer

"A fascinating book that describes one of the world’s largest self-organized communities in Torre David, an uncompleted skyscraper in Caracas."

– Pop-Up City

Edited by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner

With photographs by Iwan Baan

Design: Integral Lars Müller

16,5 x 24 cm, 6 ½ x 9 ½ in

416 pages, 406 illustrations

hardback

2012, 978-3-03778-298-9, English

Documentary Photography Urban Development Community Life Latin America

CHF 45.00

Alfredo Brillembourg

Alfredo Brillembourg (*1961 in New York) received his Bachelor of Art and Architecture in 1984 and his Master of Science in Architectural Design in 1986 from Columbia University. In 1998, he founded the Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) collective as an informal multi-disciplinary research group in his home in Altamira, Caracas. In 2001, Brillembourg invited Hubert Klumpner to co-found the U-TT NGO and later in 2007 to co-found the U-TT company in Caracas, Venezuela. In the following years, Brillembourg expanded the U-TT activities through numerous partnerships and several still-active U-TT offices. He has been a professor at the Central University of Venezuela, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, and from 2010 to 2019 at ETH Zurich.

Hubert Klumpner

Hubert Klumpner (*1975 in Salzburg) graduated from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna under Professor Hans Hollein. In 1995, he received a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University in New York. In 2001, Klumpner co-founded the Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) NGO in Caracas, Venezuela, together with Alfredo Brillembourg. From 2007, he taught as a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning and Preservation at Columbia University / NY, where he, together with Alfredo Brillembourg, founded the "Sustainable Living Urban Model Laboratory (S.L.U.M. Lab) ". Since 2010, Klumpner has been Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich.

Iwan Baan

Photo Iwan Baan

Iwan Baan (*1975) is a Dutch architecture and documentary photographer based in Amsterdam. His photography focuses on the life of architecture and how people reappropriate their built environment to make it their own. Baan has worked with leading architects and architecture studios such as Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Herzog & de Meuron, SANAA, Zaha Hadid and Steven Holl, and his images regularly appear in national and international newspapers and magazines. He has authored or collaborated on many books and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2012. Baan's work has been exhibited internationally, including a retrospective exhibition launched at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein in 2023/2024.

CHF 45.00