(Xinhua) - "Venezuela is to start a new housing program in honor of late architect Carlos Raul Villanueva, President Hugo Chávez announced in his television and radio program Aló Presidente.

The first project of the program, to be known as Misión Villanueva (Villanueva Mission), will begin in the Tamanaco neighborhood of Marinche, a city in Miranda state, with 1,200 apartments.

The new buildings will make use of solar and wind power, and will have green areas, sporting facilities and social spaces.

The program is part of a broader socialist construction plan in Venezuela.

Villanueva was one of Venezuela's most important architects, designing the University of Caracas, which was declared a United Nations world heritage site in 2000, as well as the Bull Ring in the city of Maracay, and Caracas's Fine Arts Museum.

Villanueva was born in 1900 in Croydon, a neighborhood in the south of London. He died in Caracas 1975".