Fruto Vivas: Integration of art, nature and human sensitivity (+Christmas)

On January 21, 1928, in La Grita, Táchira state, the prominent Venezuelan architect José Fructoso Vivas, better known as Fruto Vivas, was born.

He graduated from the Central University of Venezuela in 1956, where he demonstrated his talent in the art of designing buildings. His fighting spirit led him to secretly join the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV).

His work philosophy was to integrate man into nature. “I talk about trees to live as a possible dream. Coexisting with nature without us being more important than the mastranto flower or a butterfly,” Vivas once said.

His talent for designing buildings earned him various awards, including the Venezuelan National Architecture Award, in 1987; he received an honorary doctorate degree from the Faculty of Architecture of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), in 2009; recognition that was repeated in 2011 at the National Experimental University of Táchira (UNET).

In the early morning of August 23, 2022, he died at 94 years of age.

His most emblematic works: Church of Santa Rosa, Valencia (1946); Club Táchira, Caracas (1955); Hotel Moruco, Mérida (1955); Modern Art Museum, Caracas, Venezuela, together with the architect Oscar Niemeyer (1955); Church of the Holy Redeemer (1957); Zapara Urbanization Church (1957); Hotel La Cumbre, Ciudad Bolívar (1958); Plaza Mayor de San Cristóbal (1958); Hotel La Montaña (1967); Tree for Life Complex (1994); Venezuelan Pavilion Hannover Expo (2000); Project for the headquarters of the NGO Recycled Lives in Santos, Brazil (2011) and The Flower of the Four Elements (2013).

Mazo News Team