title. el Embudo - Evaluation Study and Descriptive Memory and architectural first draft
date. 2019
city. Bogotá
architects. EzArq
An Evaluation Study and Descriptive Memory aims to generate a concise background in order to argue the decision-making of the architectural design.
This document summarizes the history and evolution of the property located in the heart of La Concordia neighborhood in the historic town of La Candelaria. It serves as a support to the functional adaptation so as to ensure the conservation and good use of the property classified as a Site of Cultural Interest, which is also located in one of the most relevant Sectors of Cultural Interest in Colombia.
For this purpose, the study is supported with documentation provided by the owners, research in archives and documents of the Bogotá Archive, National Library, the Agustín Codazzi Geographical Institute, the District Institute of Cultural Heritage, the Secretariat's archive District Planning.
Block development in the XXth century
The property is located in La Candelaria district in the Concordia neighborhood. These determinants produce a unique spatiality in the city of Bogotá. The historic center has been a witness to the changes and architectural evolution that the city has experienced over the years.
Thanks to aerial photographs it is possible to see the original conformation of the block and the development it has had during the last century. Being the only property on the block that preserves its patio, it represents an opportunity to set a precedent for patio management.
Basic history of the site
Current state of the house
Today the property goes unnoticed within an urban complex full of color and movement, however, it is an open space that invites to take pause and breath in the midst of the daily hustle and bustle in the center of the capital.
Design proposal
Françoise Choay talks about how heritage "aims to revive in the present a past swallowed up by time". This property, located in the heart of Bogotá, is an opportunity for the sector and for the city. The Evaluation Study was a tool to understand the proper management to be given to the property in order to take advantage of this opportunity for revitalization. Choay also says that an intervention in heritage “does not […] try to record, transmit neutral information, but to elicit, through emotion, a living memory […] of people, events, sacrifices or beliefs” of a community. The intervention “secures, reassures and appeases, conjuring the being of time. It guarantees of our origins and calls out the concern generated by the uncertainty of the beginnings. As a challenge to entropy, to the dissolving action of time on natural and artificial things, it tries to appease the anguish of death and annihilation”.
The property seeks to become a landmark within the city. The intention was that when the property is intervened, the Patrimonial Values found during the research become the basis from which the project design starts. It was understood that the original construction techniques and the patios are the key pieces that make this project an element that not only evokes, but also invites to live with the past in a different way, where the past and the present merge and the Inside and outside line is transformed depending on the point where the visitor is.
