With the improvement of transportation and public services, the occupation of the land on the margins began in a hazardous manner starting from the end of the nineteenth century. Another form of urban growth began to emerge: the new neighborhoods. Developers shaped the new real estate market; they offered new locations, divided according to demand and normalized the offer with plots of standard form and size directed towards a generic client defined by its level of income or capacity for debt. The state contributed to this process by subsidizing individual demand and financing the construction of the single-family home while promoting the differentiation between working and residential neighborhoods, based on the size of the standard plot, acting in both cases based on a model of dispersed city. 4 The state promoted the adoption of planning instruments that boomed during the 50s. First came their definition, with the support of external offices (Le Corbusier, Wienner and Sert with the TPA). Then, their detailed wording by local administrations. However, their adoption was limited due to the opposition of agents with political influence. It must be noted that Colombia experienced a climate of tension due to the dispute over the ownership of the land, which reached one of its highest points with the murder of popular leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 9, 1948, a fact that provoked the popular uprising known as “El Bogotazo”. Modern architects were forced to act based on the principles of zoning; designing and building specialized areas for services in peripheral zones, such as the International Center in Bogotá or the National, District or Municipal Administrative Centers of Barranquilla, Cali and Medellín. In other cases, intervening in the scenarios created by the expansion of roads, such as Catorce, Décima, Tercera and Diecinueve avenues in the center of Bogotá, Oriental Avenue in Medellín, Quince street in Cali, etc. They also participated in remodeling operations in the compact city, replacing pre-existing buildings to house the new public institutions based on the initiative of each local or regional entity or in the centralized initiatives of the National Buildings Department of the Ministry of Public Works. They also intervened designing high-rise housing, corporate buildings and buildings for new tertiary activities in centers of greater population and specialization.
The article was followed by the publication of the Redevelopment Project of the Central Market Square and its surrounding areas, which operated as a laboratory to explore the consequences of the encounter between the new building types introduced by modern architecture - platforms, blocks, towers - and the urban form of the historic city: grid, block, property division, continuous wall, house-patio. Its anticipatory character is evident. The project included an urban plan - drawn by hand - showing the area of the intervention located just two blocks from Plaza de Bolívar, spiritual center of the nation. The area had a privileged location but presented problems of hygiene and was described as sordid. The commission, self-imposed by the authors, was to house six times the resident population in that area of the historic center of Bogotá, in buildings of four, six and eight stories, arranged on an area of 16 blocks, considering as well commercial shops, parks and “wider streets”. The published project reveals the intention to preserve the existing grid - except for the fusion of some blocks - while enlarging certain streets. To the east of Carrera Décima the existing layout was fully preserved. The blocks were occupied by a continuous platform with three rectangular buildings on top, which defined three of the four edges of the block, and left the eastern edge open to favor the view from the new buildings towards the hills and the historical city center. The center of the block was left unbuilt and proposed as a green interior courtyard. The layout was modified to the west. Three blocks were combined - including the one where the Market was located - and a rectangular super-block was created, which, at street level, was occupied with a platform on which seven residential blocks of rectangular layout were rhythmically placed perpendicular to the longer side of the block. A second super-block was defined between Octava and Once streets and Carrera Once and Carrera Trece. An urban park with a lake, vegetation and small buildings was proposed, while on the border with Carrera Trece a continuous platform was placed with eight paired towers of square plan. A third super-block was located between Séptima and Octava Streets and Carrera Décima and Carrera Trece. It was occupied by a perimeter platform on which three types of buildings were placed: paired square towers, rectangular buildings arranged in a strict east-west direction and rectangular buildings arranged parallel to Séptima street. In the isometric of the project the metamorphosis is consummated. Over the colonial fabric of the historical center of Bogota, high-rise buildings now appeared as parallelepipeds. In the combination of platforms, blocks and towers over the inherited checkerboard, the key to the anticipated modern city seemed to reside.
ANTICIPATION
“Bogota can be a modern city” was published in 1946 in issue number 3 of Proa magazine. Its authors were Luz Amorocho, Enrique García, José J. Angulo and Carlos Martínez.
4 See Áreas residenciales en Bogotá, Urbanismos No. 2, July 2007, master’s degree in Urban Planning, Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
15
Made with FlippingBook Annual report maker