España Library in Colombia by Giancarlo Mazzanti. Photo: Sergio Gomez.
España Library by Giancarlo Mazzanti. Photo: Gomez.
In a remarkably short period of time, Colombia has shifted its image from a country engulfed in crime and corruption to one of innovation and optimism. Since 1980, it is a legal requirement in Colombia for every new building to be realized by means of a public competition. The abundance of these competitions and relatively low budgets favor local architects who draw on a lifetime of empirical knowledge to address the real needs of the communities while remaining sensitive to strong regional identities. Colombia: Transformed, currently on exhibit through January 10 at the Architecture Center Houston, showcases 11 recent projects, by 6 Colombian architects, that exemplify the country's commitment to design and illustrate the capacity for democratically produced architecture to improve the lives of ordinary people.
The narrative of Colombia’s sociopolitical shift can be traced to the vision of Enrique Penalosa. As the mayor of Bogotá from 1998 to 2001, Penalosa launched an ambitious program to upgrade the city's infrastructure. He initiated the construction of hundreds of kilometers of foot and cycle paths to link various parks, libraries, and schools across the city. Penalosa’s programs ignited a similar passion in Colombia's second-largest city, Medellín. With essential infrastructure in place, including an elevated Metrocable that links the hillside barrios with the city's core, Mayor Sergio Fajardo further propagated the benefits of socially conscious architecture and took an assertive role from 2003 to 2007 in molding “his” city. Not waiting for the mandatory competitions, Fajardo, writes Cathelijne Nuijsink, "put together a team of urban developers, ecologists, civil technicians, architects, politicians, and environmentalists who got 30 projects going, from footpaths, footbridges, parks and open spaces to schools and libraries" (MARK 2009).
This shift is the backdrop behind the exhibited projects of Colombia: Transformed. Employing related themes of transparency, democracy, and order, Colombia's small, multigenerational community of architects collaborated to create architecture that houses the required programmatic functions and offers users the ability to appropriate spaces for locally unique conditions.
Recognizing that school holidays and weekends constitute 40 percent of the calendar year, Juan Manuel Pelaez, for example, redefined the relationship between public schools and their communities in Colegio Las Mercedes. Pelaez avoided the enclosures of fences and walls, establishing a form of transparency that was previously nonexistent, giving priority to open spaces, and encouraging social interaction among diverse populations.
Timayui Kindergarten by Giancarlo Mazzanti. Photo: Jorge Gamboa.
Medellín Sports Coliseum by Giancarlo Mazzanti and Felipe Mesa. Photo: Gomez.
As Colombian citizens casually appropriate programmatic spaces, Colombian architects intuitively appropriate topographical form. The faceted façade of Giancarlo Mazzanti's España Library and the profile of Mazzanti's and Felipe Mesa's Sports Complex appear to be conscious efforts to interpret the texture of the Andes Mountains.
Even abstractly one can observe the terrain as it appears behind the enigmatic aura emitted by the Fernando Botero Park Library by G-Ateliers Architecture. The exterior ensemble of folds, gaps, and cavities builds an austere order that evokes a curiosity similar to one's desire to compartmentalize celestial constellations or uncover faces in craggy rock formations. In the way that the Andes incessantly steal the horizon and final hours of light, the library's reduced use of materials and finishes steals the viewer's imagination while giving no hint as to what lies beyond the exterior plane.
Botero Library in Medellín by G Ateliers Architecture. Photo: Orlando Garcia.
Interior of Botero Library. Photo: Garcia.
Locally the exhibition has been of particular interest for young architects and native Colombians working in Houston's architecture firms, according to Mat Wolff, the Associate Director of AIA Houston. Many visitors might be discovering projects for the first time, particularly interventions that have not been publicized internationally, such as the Arví Park Núcle by Felipe Uribe or the Colegio Bureche by Juan Manuel Pelaez. The exhibit not only inspires; it also provides leverage for designers to initiate beautifully crafted, socially conscious designs within the impoverished communities of their own city. Still, one can't help questioning whether such success in Colombia is translatable to cities with rigid networks of existing infrastructure and less agreeable climates. But after reading the testimonies of the Colombian architects on whom the exhibit is based, one understands the undeniable capacity for thoughtful architecture to transform social, political, and economic landscapes no matter the geographic location.
By Dillon Phillips
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