Corroding Geometries: Elsa Gramcko, Automobility, and the Paradoxes of Venezuelan Modernity, 1955–1965.

Oil production nearly doubled under the Pérez Jiménez regime, and with this oil-sustained wealth the government sought to project visually and materially a progressive image of the nation in order to mask its own regressive and violent policies - a phenomenon described by Blackmore as "spectacular modernity."[26] Investing in a system of automobility was particularly valuable to the spectacular modernity the Pérez Jiménez government endeavored to achieve. Juan Calzadilla, "Entrevista con Elsa Gramcko: realizada el 30 de agosto de 1976", in López Quintero, I Elsa Gramcko i , 53-56, 56. 41 Coronil wrote, "Ever since the height of the boom in 1955 the government had made it a practice to postpone paying its debts to the construction companies with which it had contracted for projects.... By 1957 this practice had escalated until government debt was estimated at over $1.4 billion, of which the domestic debt was only $150 million.... According to [Pérez Jiménez], the private contractors had obtained financing on the basis of government contracts, including contracts with schedules that tied payments to the completion of distinct phases of the work. The Venezuelan economy, which reached the peak of its boom in 1955, began a rapid downturn by 1957.[40] The result of drastic mismanagement on the part of the government, the fiscal contraction hampered sectors key to the economy and the regime's power, most importantly the construction industry.[41] Projects such as El Helicoide, which had ridden the bullish wave of speculative investment and economic optimism, ground to a halt. [Extracted from the article]