Architects+and+Urban+Planners

If you take a look at some cities, you will find that some of them are organized in wide reticules, with enough streets and enough schools and hospitals in the way, while others are just a mess of buildings and streets all cramped together. And, if you enter any building, you will find organized spaces, halls and furniture, but also, you could find rooms that have no space for walking, furniture all stuffed together and doors that don’t allow the entrance for any person without some contortionism. It is the same feeling right? organization and disorder? Well, this is the basic similarity, and also, the basic difference between Architects and Urban Planners. They both organize space in some way, but in different scales. Urban Planners take charge of cities, organizing the buildings in it as if the city was an enormous building itself, where you need to locate accesses, entrances and different “rooms” for different uses, evaluating the needs of pedestrians as much as the needs for vehicle transit. Architects, though, take charge of smaller proportions, they design buildings that are organized internally, evaluating where are the best spots for the location of any room, and also taking care of the needs of specific people while designing a master piece.

In Caracas, you can see we have a case of missing urban planning. You will find out that there’s no order in the “rooms”. You may find three malls in the same block; find streets that go nowhere, or find missing hospitals for miles. Also, you’ll find that there’s no reason between buildings, as you will notice buildings that are as tall as the Sears Tower located next to a little house, buildings made out of brick next to buildings made out of glass, malls are located in small urbanizations that produce traffic jams that last for hours, and so on. Caracas is so badly ordered, that you will find chaos at any hour, just try to draw on the highway in the morning.

media type="file" key="ghj.wav"