Contradictoy meanings in Latin American modern housing: Unidad Residencial República de Venezuela in Cali, Colombia

On August 7, 1956, six military trucks with 42 tons of dynamite accidentally detonated in Cali, Colombia, demolishing 3.6 hectares and leaving 6,236 families homeless. To alleviate the housing deficit the Venezuelan government, headed by General Marcos Pérez Jiménez, donated the project Unidad Residencial República de Venezuela. Originally, it corresponded to Block No. 8 of the 23 de Enero Urbanization in Caracas, a large-scale project of the Venezuelan National Housing Plan 1951 - 1955.

Modern architecture derived stylistic and functional characteristics formulated and disseminated through academic and professional networks. The original project in Caracas and the one built in Cali have traditionally been narrated as axiomatic solutions to satisfy the deficit of decent housing and the physical transformation of Latin American cities by eradicating the slums—a time of acute political conflict and the upcoming deposition of dictatorial governments in Colombia and Venezuela.

The ideas of production of space, social status as well as taste provide tools to reveal the contradictory intentions that shaped the meaning of the project: disassociating the reality of the new inhabitants to maintain the status quo, portraying their grandeur linked to the prestige of architects in the Latin American climate; establishing the donation as a necessary tool to develop the city in private transactions. These fissures reveal the complexity of the socio-spatial processes underlying the project, which are currently unsolved.