Inside The Tower of David, Venezuela’s Vertical Slum
LOST MASTERPIECE
Alamy
It was supposed to be a dramatic symbol of wealth, but became a squatters’ paradise. Now the Torre de David stands vacant in the center of Caracas, its future unclear.
This is part of our weekly series, Lost Masterpieces, about the greatest buildings and works of art that were destroyed or never completed.
The Torre David was supposed to be one of the tallest buildings in Venezuela. Instead, it became its most notorious slum.
The skyscraper, halted mid-construction in the early 1990s, was taken over by thousands of squatters in 2007. For years they turned the building into an informal community that was photographed, filmed and made famous worldwide as a “vertical slum.”