Literature, Culture and Architecture in Contemporary Venezuela
Interdisciplinary dialogue explores urban imaginaries, modernity and belonging in Berlin
August 28th, 2025
The Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut in Berlin will host the conversation “Literatura, cultura y arquitectura en la Venezuela contemporánea” on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, from 18:00 to 20:00, in its conference hall. The event will be held in Spanish and is organized in cooperation with Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Universität Heidelberg.
Bringing together Vanessa Márquez, Debby Avendaño and Adrián Navia (Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida / HGGS Heidelberg), the discussion will examine how literary, cultural, and architectural imaginaries in Venezuela have anticipated and represented processes of modernization, exclusion and urban fragmentation.
By crossing disciplinary perspectives, the dialogue will highlight how these cultural practices provide critical tools for understanding transformations of urban space, illuminating the tensions between tradition and modernity, belonging and otherness that have shaped Venezuelan experience throughout the 20th century and beyond.
The conversation will be moderated by Monika Raič (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). Each participant will also present a focused intervention: Vanessa Alejandra Márquez Vargas – “Cartografías de lo urbano: la literatura venezolana entre modernización y pertenencia”; Debby Avendaño Sánchez – “Procesos dialógicos y prácticas del habitar para una lectura de lo moderno en la ciudad y arquitectura venezolanas”; and Adrián Navia Segovia – “Murallas contemporáneas: fragmentación y deshabitar”
For German and international audiences, the event offers not only a window into contemporary Venezuelan thought, but also a broader reflection on how literature and architecture articulate the cultural and political stakes of urban life in times of change.
