De la excelencia al olvido. Sobre la emergencia y la desaparición de dos décadas de arquitectura en Colombia

After WW2, an important and active group of Colombian architects got involved in a process of modernization still primarily intended as a technical challenge. Their architectural production started being featured in international publications, positioning Colombia in the world map of modernism. The review of some of the major architectural magazines from Europe, USA and Latin America defines a clear frame on the reception of this production, from which the work of professionals trained in the USA and their bold structural experimentations in concrete stood out. In this way, the image of Colombian modernism was constructed, lasting until the 1970s. Then, this image started disappearing from the critical and historiographic discourse, as a result of a new cultural climate, based on the nostalgia for a non-globalized world, which looked back at the category of “human” and an essentializing national character.