El Helicoide: A Shopping Mall That Became A Prison

Sitting on a small natural hill, amidst San Agustn slums, Caracas, Venezuela, is a

magnificent building with a spiraling ramp coiling onto itself becoming tighter as it rises,

until it reaches the apex crowned by a geodesic dome.

El Helicoide, or the Helix, is one of Venezuelas most important relics of the

modernist movement. It was conceived in the late 1950s and it was hailed as a triumph of

modernist design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Right before completion, the government collapsed and the architects lost their

funding. After bankruptcy it became government property. It was taken over by the

Venezuelan intelligence police. The buildings innumerable shops became cells to hold

detainees for questioning. There, political prisoners were tortured. SWAT teams doesnt

allow taking pictures of the building from surrounding highways.

In 2012, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights examined the Helicoide and

concluded it wasnt fit to be a prison. Yet, it continues to hold prisoners. According to an

NGO report, there were 145 cases of torture from January 2014 to June 2016 alone.