Department of Forestry Engineering

This building was constructed at the campus of the university (Universidad de Los Andes) in Merida where Prof. Zalewski taught from 1962- 1963. The building was designed in collaboration with Architect José Adolfo Peña, and housed the Department of Forestry Engineering. It constitutes another step in Prof. Zalewski's long development of precast concrete column capitals. In this case, the architectural concept required a slab with a rectilinear grid of beams to facilitate a modular system of partition panels. The capitals, which lie entirely beneath the slabs, have long arms that reach out to become part of the grid at their extremities. The cruciform columns are shaped to accept wall panels on their indented faces.

This system was far lighter and with wider spans than the earlier capital designs, because the institution’s academic spaces had loads far lower than those in the industrial factories and warehouses in Poland. This permitted longer spans and lighter components. Also, capitals in the lower columns within multistory spaces are shorn of their arms where they are not carrying floor loads. This truncation articulates the versatility of the system and its potential for enclosing multistory spaces with the same limited number of discrete floor, column, and capital elements.

[This project is included in the 2006 exhibit "Waclaw Zalewski: Shaping Structures" which opens at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in April 2006. The entire exhibit, reviewed by Prof. Zalewski, has been created by: Edward Allen, Visiting Professor of Architecture, David M. Foxe and Jeff Anderson. ]