Greetings to all the wonderful Architecture+Design community of #Hive, delighted and excited to participate for the first time in your community, I hope to live up to your requirements and learn a lot from you from now on.
In this opportunity I want to tell you about the design and architecture of one of the tourist towns, emblematic of Venezuela called "La Colonia Tovar". While I am writing I would like to show you images of the San Martin de Tours Church and how it was founded.
The story goes that after the South American emancipation, the famous geographer and cartographer Agustín Codazzi, born in Ferrara, Italy, arrived in these lands; who in his passion for research and discovery joined the governments of Venezuela and Colombia and worked hand in hand for their advancement and total liberation from the Spanish government.
In 1840, Agustin Codazzi was given the difficult task of attracting foreign hands to contribute to the agro-economic development of Venezuela. Thus, with the help of the geographer Alexander von Humboldt Alexander von Humboldt, they organized the transfer to America of families of German origin, particularly from the community of the Black Forest, a mountainous region in the southwest of Germany. After so many studies, consultations, negotiations and procedures of all kinds, the first contingent of 400 people, mostly men, arrived at the port of La Guaira, in Caracas, Venezuela.
All this effort made it possible for these families to settle in this beautiful and high valley where the Tuy River is born and make it their definitive home, uniting their future and that of their descendants with Venezuela.
The architecture is based on German forms and techniques and is undoubtedly one of the aspects that shows the conservation of the cultural traditions of its people.
Its houses, schools, medicatura and other commercial buildings were built in the best alpine style; white and brown colors stand out and prevail; materials such as wood in ceilings, floors and finishes; stone walls and foundations that separate them from the humid and sloping soils typical of this terrain. In some facilities, the Fachwerk construction system was implemented. From what I could find out about this Fachwerk method, it is said that it was also implemented in Chile.
The Fachwerk is a structure based on a timber frame filled with raw earth on a fabric of branches fixed to straight legs and timber firewalls. It is also characterized by the use of wooden floor trusses.
The "Saint Martin of Tours" church
The Church of San Martin de Tours1 is a religious building that belongs to the Catholic Church built by German immigrants 4 months after arriving in Venezuela, it is located in the Tovar Municipality in the north of Aragua State, and in the central north of the South American country of Venezuela. At the beginning it had a wooden structure, walls of bahareque and roof of palmiche, but little by little it underwent several modifications and enlargements.
Octagonal Tower (1953)
Thanks to the fachwerk system, in 1953 the carpenter Juan Breidenbach and his sons built a new octagonal wooden tower which is still standing; then they continued the construction of a parallel wing following the construction plans of what was a faithful copy of their church in the German Black Forest.
The church is located in front of the Bolivar square which since I know it has also undergone certain modifications; the most recent one was the fences that were put in all its surroundings as a security measure against delinquency and to separate a little what is the commerce and traffic of vehicles of the main street that ends right in this square.
Every time I visit the church I can not help but admire all that this church represents, how well preserved it is and at the same time its simplicity and how beautiful it is inside. This time I was lucky enough to attend mass and as a faithful believer of the Catholic church I went to listen, the truth is that the church is too small for the number of people attending.
To take these pictures I waited a long time for the church to empty so I could capture the best images of what I wanted to show you. The ceiling is made entirely of wood and contrasts perfectly with the color of the pews and confessionals. The stained glass windows in the shape of a chapel are full of color and you can see how well finished they are. Something that really strikes me are the lamps or chandeliers in the central nave, they are gigantic, somewhat rough, I do not know whether to call this industrial or antique style. At the same time, in the side aisles where the Blessed Sacrament is located, there are smaller lamps in the same style as in the central nave.
The walls of the main altar are lined with sheets of stone, with a round stained glass window of St. Michael the Archangel and a picture of St. Martin of Tours and the Virgin of Perpetual Help on the sides.
Many people come in here to take pictures and perhaps that takes away a little of the charm of the place, but if you concentrate and close your eyes you can find the peace and silence you are looking for.
The climate of the colony is very cool, this makes the church is kept in a good climate, without the need for air conditioners or fans.
Next to the main church is still preserved the old chapel built by the first settlers and it is really intact, there you can see the first altar and the first image of San Martin brought directly from the land of their ancestors. This church was declared a national historical monument in 1994.
The agricultural colonization project that Agustin Codazzi and the government of Venezuelan President Jose Antonio Paez dreamed of one day, is considered a success, so much so that in 1964 in the government of President Romulo Betancourt decreed the Colonia Tovar as a site of tourist interest and it is from this moment that the other sectors near this iconic town have been integrating tourism.
Here you can find lodging in the first hotel that was built and that bears the name of Selva Negra in homage to the land where they were born and that follows the same German infrastructure. There are also other lodgings that date from the same period and other more modern ones but with the same customs, always pursuing the same purpose, which is to serve and offer the tourist the best.
History is the best and the one who tells it is a visionary who reflects on paper all these stories that will never cease to be told and will pass from generation to generation.
In the last report of the geographer and cartographer Agustín Codazzi highlights that after having built settlements with huts made of bahareque and palm roofs, these houses were evolving and by 1843 there were already 70 houses, a church and a cemetery.
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Imágenes tomadas con mi cámara celular Redmi Poco X3/ https://www.deepl.com/es/translator