Los modelos urbanos CIAM en las universidades colombianas, 1945-1960

This article examines the introduction and the spread of CIAM models and theories within Colombian faculties of architecture since the first experimentations in Bogotá –to read in parallel with urban projects designed by architects trained abroad– to the arrival of the international “experts” –Le Corbusier, Sert, Wiener and Breuer– who through their activity helped to build the framework for a widespread diffusion and consolidation of CIAM practices in universities. According to a wide range of archival and hemerographic sources, this article displays a varied corpus of students’ projects showing a clear assimilation of CIAM principles (functional zoning, traffic separation), tools (Grille) and concepts (Civic centre, neighbourhood units). A closer look, however, proves how this reception took the form of an “undiluted borrowing” (Stephen Ward), a quick but mostly a-critical assimilation of certain elements, in this text considered as “orthodoxly” CIAM, while critical positions from inside the CIAM, like that of the Team X, remained basically unacknowledged.