Alien architecture Bolivia

• Alien Bolivia architecture

At an altitude of 4000 meters above sea level in the mountains of Bolivia stretches the city of El Alto. Predominantly ocher-red, he is full of thousands of low brick houses-like matchboxes, whose unfinished and unpainted facades lined the dusty unpaved roads. The landscape is so dull, monotonous and depressing that the locals began to revive its splashes of color wherever possible. They began to make their homes, turning them into a structure with strange shapes, more reminiscent of the aliens home.

At the head of this small-town architectural revolution - a self-taught architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre, whose pretentious buildings and flashy color combinations strive to capture the entire El Alto. These structures are called "cholets" - from the word "chalet" (chalet, a large house) and "Chola", an expression that name-calling local Aymara Indians.

The city of El Alto, was founded more than a hundred years ago and originally represented the slum on the outskirts of the Bolivian capital of La Paz. But in recent years developed into a suburb of La Paz and is the second most populous city in the country after Santa Cruz. In addition, it is one of the highest situated cities in the world and the fastest growing city in South America.

The change began in 2005 with the coming to power of the current Bolivian President Evo Morales. President comes from the Aymara people, and his election gave members more confidence. He gave the Indians ethnic groups greater political autonomy and support their involvement in commercial activities. Under the leadership of Morales in the past ten years the number of people living below the poverty line has decreased by one third. By 2012, about 1, 2 million Bolivians were treated to the middle class. Architecture Freddy Mamani Silvestre - a symbol of new-found confidence and economic recovery.

Some representatives of the Aymara is so improved their position that they can not afford to build their own chalet. House, designed and decorated Freddy Mamani Silvestre, cost from 300 to 600 thousand dollars, and some even more expensive. Among rich traders from Aymara the architect are high status symbol.

Freddy Mamani Silvestre managed to design a sixty or seventy buildings in El Alto, and more than a dozen houses are under construction. Architects ambitious: he wants to make the design of urban spaces, bus stops and the boulevards.

Although the criticism and blamed him for the bright colors and extravagant design, calling it kitsch, others compare it to Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the New Zealand artist and architect of Austrian origin. Some people believe that Mamani able to do for El Alto that made Antonio Gaudi for Barcelona and Oscar Niemeyer for Brasilia - completely change the shape and aesthetics of the city.

The architect himself is full of confidence: "For 20 years, half of the houses will be built here in my style."