“Gego” impresses itself on the memory: two short syllables and a single, repeating consonant (pronounce it halfway between Geh-go and Gay-go). With “Gego,” Gertrudls Goldschmidt (1912-94) converted her German name into sounds appropriate to her adopted Venezuela. Both witty conceit and tough professional strategy, this was only one of her many acts of engineering. Her four-letter fabrication connotes a structural efficiency befitting her identity as an architect trained in Stuttgart, she practiced in Caracas after emigrating in 1939.

Gego claimed she never regarded herself as an “artist,” yet