Palacio Federal Legislativo

The Palacio Federal Legislativo (English: Federal Legislative Palace), also known as the Capitolio, is a historic building in Caracas, Venezuela which now houses the National Assembly. Located southeast of the Plaza Bolívar, it was built in 1872 by President Antonio Guzman Blanco to a design by the architect Luciano Urdaneta. The Salón Elíptico, opened in 1877, is topped by a golden dome.

Adopting a radically anticlerical approach, Antonio Guzman Blanco introduced contemporary architecture to Venezuela, in particular in Caracas. The Palacio Federal Legislativo, located to the west of Plaza Bolívar, is one such building (of several he had built during his presidency). It is painted bright white and has a gilded oval-shaped dome crowning an elliptically shaped room (known as the Oval Room). The dome's ceiling has a painting by Martín Tovar y Tovar which vividly depicts the crucial Battle of Carabobo in the Venezuelan War of Independence against Spanish colonial rule.

Built in 1872, it replaced an earlier convent on the site. The most notable professionals of the times were commissioned to design the building: Luciano Urdaneta and Roberto Garcia handled the engineering while the architect was Juan Hurtado Manrique. The complex consists of two rectangular volumes connected by two lower sections. It encloses a courtyard with a central fountain set in a small garden inside iron railings. The two Neoclassical buildings are known as the Legislative Palace and the Federal Palace. The first, completed in 1873, became the Congress in 1958 and the National Assembly in 2000.

The façade of the Legislative Palace, completed in 1877, is symmetrical in design. It has a portico at the center. The triangular pediment has a bas-relief of busts of Simón Bolívar and Antonio Guzmán Blanco. There are three columnated portals, the one in the centre presenting two caryatids representing Justice and Freedom. The building houses a number of notable paintings by Venezuelan artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries including Martín Tovar y Tovar, Antonio Herrera Toro, Tito Salas, Pedro Centeno Vallenilla and Emilio Jacinto Mauri.

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