The+purposes+of+architecture+and+urban+planning



Very often people confuse achitecture with urban planning, however those are two different matters though they have certain similarities.

Architecture can be defined as the art and science of designing and erecting buildings and other physical structures. Its main purpose, contrary to what people think, is not to provide shelter for humans, but to create a space that satisfies all the requirements, and at the same time to be innovative and beautiful. Also, architecture can represent status, power or privacy, comunicate information, separate domain and differentiate the purposes for each space just by the correct design of it.

On the other hand, urban planning is the process of shapping the physical setting for life and cities, towns and villages.In other words, it is more about the design in a bigger scale to make the processes that make succesful development possible.

Urban planning has influence among a very large group of people with different needs; architecture, on the contrary, affects on a smaller group that should have similar needs, after all they are sharing the same building.

Now, how does Carcas stand in terms of both, architecture and urban planning? Well, in my opinion Caracas has a lot of good architecture that goes from the most ancient forms to very innovating buildings. However, I think the urban planning was not yet well thought. Firstly, because it is obvious that it was arranged for a certain amount of people that nowadays is more that the tripple, so there is a lot of overpopulation. Then, important buildings are placed wrongly whether because they are too far or because they are surrounded by buildings that have nothing in common with. To end, many roads and highways were built wherever they could fit and not in a intelligent riskfree way so this causes a lot of traffic jams and accidents.

To conclude I think architects and urban planners are protagonists in the fundation of a city or a town, even though we don't notice it every day, they are very important in the development of them.

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