Aside from being a great opportunity to root for the underdog, this story makes clear the ways in which architecture is physically embedded into the infrastructural, political and social fabric of the city. The architecture itself becomes secondary to the way the inhabitants transform the structure into a living social framework. It's true, as Lebbeus Woods points out, that what is going on here isn't a new phenomenon. It's not a story of globalization deteriorating into chaos, it's a story as old as civilization. At it's core the message is more about what can be done, physically accomplished (regardless of individual morals and larger social implications) when economics and social organizations are left to play out in an unique heterotopia taking full advantage of loosened governmental restrictions. Opportunistic? Maybe. Thievery? Possibly. Clear-cut? Absolutely not!
"Another lesson to be learned from the Caracas story is that all those who have been hoping for a social revolution to emerge from the dispossessed squatters and slum-dwellers—the poor—had better think again. What these people want is not a new, egalitarian society founded on ideals of social justice, but only what most others already have—a consumer society with all the bells and whistles and toys. Clearly, the Caracas tower is not a breeding ground for radical social change. It is an unintended parody of the society that created the squatters’ dire situation to begin with." LW.
