Directed by: Markus Kneer and Daniel Schwartz
Concept by: Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner
Cinematography by: Markus Kneer and Daniel Schwartz
Edited by: Markus Kneer
Sound: Daniel Schwartz
Music: El Canserbero, Anónimo Consejo, Lagrimas de Soledad
Production assistance: Rafael Machado, Mathieu Quilici, Maria de los Angeles
Editing assistance: Daniel Schwartz, Mary Leidescher, Martin Andersson.
With support from Schindler Elevators.
Torre David, a 45-story office tower in Caracas, was almost complete when it was abandoned following the death of its developer and a national banking crisis that crippled the Venezuelan economy in 1994. Neglected for over a decade, in 2007 it became the improvised home for a community of over 800 families living in an extra-legal and tenuous occupation that many called a vertical slum.This short documentary reveals what life was like for residents several years prior to the government’s eviction in 2014.
Filmed as part of a larger project by the interdisciplinary design team, Urban-Think Tank, the movie was part of a larger research and design project that resulted in a book and numerous exhibitions, including the Golden-Lion-winning exhibition at the 2012 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
U-TT began to research and document the physical and social organization of the tower, believing there was something valuable to learn from what the residents created in eight years of squatting. The community was neither a den of criminality, nor a romantic utopia. Rather, Torre David was a building that possessed the complexity of a city. It merged formal structure and informal adaptation to provide urgently needed solutions.
In 2012, after a year of research, U-TT began to work with residents and a diverse team of collaborators to document the squatters’ adaptive reuse of the existing structure, interview residents about their experience, and design proposals to retrofit the tower complex. While striving to raise funds to implement some of these ideas, the documentary and design work was disseminated in a book, short film, lectures, and numerous exhibitions.
In 2014, the Venezuelan government announced its intention to end the occupation and transform Torre David into a commercial center and office tower. The police evicted residents, relocating most families to a new social housing project located beyond the outskirts of the city. As of mid-2015, the future of Torre David is still uncertain.
As of mid-2015 to 2024 the future of Torre David is still uncertain.
The Film and Exhibition titled: Torre David, Informal Vertical Communities. wins the 2012 Golden Lion Award, at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale.
