Colombian Architecture

From temporary pavilions at international expositions to travelling exhibitions at art galleries to experimental displays in biennials and triennials, exhibiting architecture has become both a professional practice and an object of research. Some geographies remain absent within this burgeoning field, however, ignoring the connections of these architectural events with different disciplines, actors and networks. This paper recovers a century-long history of architectural exhibitions in Bogotá, acknowledging the display of architecture as a relevant aspect of Colombian architectural history, playing a vital role in the dissemination of architectural culture in Latin America.

Análisis formal del palacio Farnese de Caprarola, realizado por Barrozzi da Vignola; con el objetivo de comprender la relación que es posible establecer en una obra pasada y una moderna o contemporánea, gracias a la aparición de elementos paradigmáticos, como el patio, que con el tiempo se convierten en verdades atemporales del quehacer arquitectónico, al componer el arquetipo formal arquitectónico. En este caso, la obra analizada comparada, es el Patio del Archivo de la Nación, obra de Rogelio Salmona.

This paper aims to reconstruct the complex depredation of the territory that results from the construction, utilization and destruction of properties in rural and urban zones in Colombia by part of drug dealers; based on the inventory and the characteristics of lands and estates seized by authorities in the last 18 years.

The reception of Brazilian architectural modernism in Colombia has been dismissed and underestimated by national historiography. This article aims to provide a first overview of the rich system of transnational relations between Colombia and Brazil. Moving from the first acknowledgments of Brazilian architectural production in Colombia — in which triangulations with the USA played an important role, not least after the Brazil Builds exhibition catalogue reached an international audience — this article displays a varied system of transference routes that made the Brazilian-Cariocan modernism one of the main references for Colombian architects during the 1950s. This text examines recognised seminal events and lesser-known facts, highlighting the existence of a wide system of connections. It analyses the reception of the work of Niemeyer and other architects in Colombian magazines and underlines the movements of Colombian architects toward Brazil. It finally recollects a varied group of projects from the 1950s that evidence the diffusion of Brazilian-Cariocan repertories in Colombia among professionals and students. The article highlights how the reception of Brazilian modernism in Colombia should be read as the result of local cases within the global process of modernism’s ‘tropicalisation’. By doing so, it also discusses the reasons that pushed this process to the margins of the mainstream historiographic narrative.

This article frames phenomena relating to knowledge transfer about construction in Latin America through the history of remote exchanges and correspondence between Félix Candela and Jaime Perea. Together they contributed by introducing parabolic shells in Cali, Colombia; Perea perfected his technical knowledge by corresponding with Candela. This article provides an account of the professional context in Colombia, which is characterized by competition between engineers to have the most innovative projects. It is possible to understand this case as existing within a professional field that, through transnational networks, quickly integrated the latest international advances.

This article critically overviews the evolving portrayal of Latin American architecture and urban design, particularly by United States and European observers, as the realization of a modernist aspiration to align design with social causes. With a focus on the coupling of architectural and nation-building projects in Colombia, the article urges for a closer look at the conditions and en-tanglements of architectural production in the region's uneven political and spatial landscapes. * Resumen Este artículo analiza críticamente la representación cambiente de la arquitectura y el diseño urba-no latinoamericanos, a través de observadores estadounidenses y europeos, como la realización de una aspiración modernista de alinear el diseño con las causas sociales. Con un enfoque en la combinación de proyectos arquitectónicos y de construcción nacional en Colombia, el artículo insta a una mirada más cercana de las condiciones y enredos de la producción arquitectónica en los desiguales paisajes políticos y espaciales de la región.

This communication proposes a journey through the different materials, techniques and construction systems that Rogelio Salmona uses in his works. The architect mainly uses solid and skeleton systems in his buildings. In fact, it is in the use of these two systems that we can find an explanation, from a project perspective, to the degree of introversion or spatial extroversion in his work. The early buildings in Salmona's career account for the stereotomic work with the masonry walls, the intermediate works combine the materials and systems and the later works account for the tectonic work with the concrete in columns and beams. In the buildings that will be seen throughout the communication, the presence of wood, metal and glass complement, refine and sometimes mediate the presence and behavior of the masonry and concrete that are, in general, the two materials that determine the degree of massiveness or lightness of the buildings or the level of introversion or spatial extroversion. To better understand this evolution, it is important to analyze the materials used by the architect, the evolution in the techniques to manipulate them and the gradual consolidation of architectural elements associated with each of these materials.

This text refers to the current state of the art in our discipline from a different perspective, exploring which I consider is its main feature: its plurality. In my opinion, the main differentiating factor of the architecture of the early twenty-first century with respect to the twentieth century is the coexistence of different trends and expressions of the discipline at the same times and places. Even though a similar phenomenon occurred early last century, most of the twentieth century was characterized by the assimilation of prevailing architectural doctrines or the succession of trends in contradiction. By contrast, today we serve the coexistence of spatial processes and results that on the one hand, enrich and diversify our urban and rural areas and, on the other, evidence the complexity of the profession, as well as the pursuit of individual languages and innovative
procedures by designers and other professionals associated with architecture. The seven trends that I will refer to result from the reiterated exaltation or prioritization of any—among numerous—variables inherent in the discipline, because of the intentions of the designer or the particularity of the request. Then they derived to state what I consider are the seven main variables that any architectural project should tackle with greater or lesser intensity.
Understood as an equalization exercise, any good architectural project should ensure a minimum level of attention to each of the seven variables, and then privileging one or some of them depending on the project, the client, the context or their own interests. Thus, thanks to this opportunity to focus on some aspect of the project, as architecture acquires identity and authorship.

The field of architecture in Colombian is studied in its relationships with Italy. Colombia became a sought-after destination for individual migrating architects and engineers, who not only contributed to the modernisation processes of discipline already underway, but also constituted intermediaries in the distribution of new languages and international theories. The Colombian case also re ects the reception of the Italian design culture. On one hand, the choice to study in Italy by come Colombian architects became an important phenomenon in the post-war years. On the other, the analysis of the circulation of contents on the Proa magazine and the reception of Zevi’s thought and Nervi’s work helps to better understand the diffusion and impact of Italy’s architectural culture abroad.
Keywords: modern architecture; professional migration; reception

What are the archives of architecture today? Basic questions
to introduce a topic to compare Italian and Colombian
archives looking to write new pages of architecture history.
The contribution analyzes the results of international
research about the engineer Angiolo Mazzoni Del Grande
between Italy and Colombia. The research has analyzed an
important archive of architecture at the MART Museum in
Rovereto (Italy) and has presented to a vast international
audience the projects elaborated by Mazzoni in Colombia
between March 1948 and May 1963.

With this paper I intend an approach to the composition of Rogelio Salmona’s architecture  and its influence in the later experience of the built work. Apparently accidental phenomena that we experience in his work, can be explained in the light of the previous processes of composition; and compositional processes, in turn, are informed and supported in phenomena that are revealed in the experience of his buildings. By stringing processes of composition and experience it is possible to find continuities and ruptures in the architect's career.