Caracas, Venezuela - Avenue of Armed Forces & Helicoid Building - postcard c.70s

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  Avenue of the Armed Forces and Helicoid Building, Caracas, Venezuela
• Publisher: Santiago
• Postally used: no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

I will give a full refund if you are not fully satisfied with the postcard.

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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El Helicoide is a building in Caracas, Venezuela, located in Roca Tarpeya between the parishes of San Pedro and San Agustín, in the extension of the avenues Armed Forces, President Medina Angarita and Nueva Granada. It has the shape of a three-sided pyramid and is built on a hill. It serves as a facility and prison belonging to the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN).

Its construction was undertaken by a private company during the government of then president Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1956. The first stage of work was completed in 1961. It was designed by the architects Pedro Neuberger, Dirk Bornhorst and Jorge Romero Gutiérrez. The idea included a commercial center and exhibition of industries, a 5-star hotel, a park, a club of owners and on the seventh level a show palace. The building would include a 4 km long ramp spiralling around the hill, allowing vehicles to enter the building and park inside of it.

Construction of the building came to a halt in 1961 due to budget problems. That same year the project was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City until in 1965 attempts were made to resume its construction and to complete it in 1967, including an area for helicopter taxis, but it was not continued either.^[1] By 1982, only the geodesic dome with its aluminum as top finish of the concrete infrastructure was completed.

From 1984, very slowly and without responding to a global project, some state agencies were installed in the building, the most important of which was the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP). For this reason, the leadership was seriously affected by a bombing in the 1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempts and an anti-aircraft response from it. The dome was later repaired following the events in 1992. Since 2010, a part of the building serves as the headquarters of the National Experimental University of Security (UNES).

On 16 May 2018, a prison riot occurred in El Helicoide [es], with several political prisoners arrested during the protests facing danger as Venezuelan authorities fired tear gas and buckshot at individuals in the area.^[2][3]