Focus on this artwork and discuss the Background.
The Venezuelan architect and designer Carlos Raúl Villanueva began designing the University City of Caracas campus in the 1940s, beginning construction in the 1950s. In a time of prevailing Modernism in Latin America, Villanueva had a stylistic ideology for the project he called the "Synthesis of the Arts"; combining the arts and architecture and creating artistic pieces that could also serve functional purposes. These principles also facilitated for the campus designs to change dramatically, both through necessity and the whim of the designer and artists he hired.Villanueva hired many artists from around the world to contribute works to the campus, including the American sculptor Alexander Calder. Calder contributed four pieces; the Floating Clouds, two stabiles, and a mobile known as Ráfaga de nieve.
Caracas Ráfaga de nieve Carlos Raúl Villanueva Alexander Calder University City of Caracas Venezuela Modernism Floating Clouds stabiles mobile