German Samper - English

GERMAN SAMPER GERMAN SAMPER

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Editorial direction Diego Samper Ediciones General coordination Marlene Escobar Project managment Catalina Samper Graphic design Diego Samper Texts Balkrishna Doshi María Cecilia O'Byrne Eduardo Samper Hernando Vargas Juan Pablo Ashner Ricardo Daza José Antonio de Ory Rodrigo Cortés Fernando Arias Fernando Jiménez Carlos Campuzano Yolanda Martínez de Samper Mauricio Téllez Sara Topelson Marcela Ángel Ximena Samper Photography Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Archives: Germán Téllez, Paul Beer, Álvaro Gonzáles C. Germán Samper Archives Diego Samper Catalina Samper Eduardo Samper Bonny Forero Nicolás Galeano - Ataca Films Perspectives Jaime Vélez H. Camacho Plans Le Corbusier Foundation Archives Bogotá Municipal Archives - Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper collection plan drawings: GX Samper Arquitectos - Diego Castro Drawings Germán Samper Scanning Sara Lizarralde Juan Camilo Hoyos English translation Juana Edwards, John Edwards & Co. Susa Oñate Iván Zagarra Proof reading Angela Royea Editorial advisors, English edition Trevor Boddy Mary Burns Richard Nelson Printing Panamericana Formas e Impresos S.A. ISBN 978-958-97536-3-7 First edition: August 2011 Printed in Colombia

contents The Story of the Acrobat and his Two Disciples Balkrishna Doshi

35 Rue de Sèvres María Cecilia O’Byrne

First Epoch Eduardo Samper

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Architects and Builders: Notes on the Teamwork of Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Hernando Vargas Caicedo

Concert Hall José Antonio de Ory

Memoirs of Competitions and Architectural Projects: Germán Samper, the Construction of Systematic Thought Rodrigo Cortés and Fernando Arias

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The Clock’s Pendulum: a Journey to Paris and its Surroundings Through the Drawings of Germán Samper Ricardo Daza

A Missed Opportunity Carlos Campuzano Castelló

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La Fragua Yolanda Martínez de Samper 166

Urban Space in the Work of Germán Samper Fernando Jiménez Mantilla

Germán Samper Contributions to Housing Issues Mauricio Tellez

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Interview with Germán Samper Marcela Angel and Ximena Samper Germán Samper Sara Topelson

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244 Projects descriptions Juan Pablo Ashner

Central Mortgage Bank 74 60 Gold Museum 76 Luis Ángel Arango Concert Hall 84 Pan American Life Insurance 90 Cali Municipal Administrative Centre 110 Coltejer Building 114 Mazuera Tower 118 Convention Centre of Cartagena 120 Bank of the Republic Barranquilla 126 Occidente Bank 130 La Fragua 162 Previ 172 Las Brujas 178 Real de Minas Citadel 192 Urban Design in Colsubsidio Citadel 198 Multi family Housing in Colsubsidio Citadel 204 Single Family Housing in Colsubsidio Citadel 212 Santa Ana House 234 San Pedro de El Abra 240

Abbott Laboratories

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Avianca Building

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Santander Park

Selected Works and Distinctions

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Architect of symbols and utopias, a dreamer of cities, traveler and chronicler of the habitat of man, master, music lover and bolero singer. The vital search of Germán Samper -his theoretical thinking, travels and works- reflects an intense and tireless passion for architecture. His entire work expresses the conviction that architecture is above all an instrument for social change, a premise of modernism that transcends historical periods and styles and lies at the core of the most profound definition of architecture.

This book spans the time from his years in Le Corbusier´s studio in the early fifties up to the present, the first decade of the 21st century. A long trajectory we don´t intend to cover in a single book, given the prolific work of the architect. This volume introduces some relevant aspects of his architectural work, and we hope it becomes a starting point for future research. It is a book spoken by many voices. A select group of architects individually researched specific topics and expressed their views. The essays alternate with presentations of relevant projects, in a sequence that admits a non-linear rhythm. The book can be read in any order, depending on the topic of interest to the reader.

Visual interpretation is meaningful in itself, combining period and current photography with sketches and file diagrams. Drawings are no doubt the protagonists, both technical drawings made by the architect and his studio collaborators, and freehand sketches. These are increasingly relevant nowadays, as this most powerful tool of architectural expression appears to have become disfigured, as it were. Drawings permit an ample and immediate connection between mind and hand, a flow of ideas, memory of the process and at the same time a message expressed in the architectural language par excellence, which can only be completed in the mind and always leaves room for imagination, reflection and in a certain way, imperfection.

The work of Germán Samper defies classification: It can be said he is clearly in the modern tradition and attained, with his partners Rafael Esguerra y Álvaro Sáenz, high levels of technical and construction skills. He can be equally regarded as a urban designer, a research and analytical architect regarding human habitats, also very socially committed, a clear legacy from modernism.

He practiced his profession in a nation undergoing transformation, and became part of the radical changes produced in Colombia during the second half of the 20th century. Businesses were changing, and it was necessary to build for a nation in economic and technical development, and for one that excluded from its rapid development more than half of its citizens who had migrated from the countryside to the cities.

That is why his early warning reflections on the unfolding of the ciudad popular or grassroots city, an informal city, but just as real, are so relevant to the contemporary study of cities. The means to urban design was architecture, and not the other way around. From the study, construction and reflections on small housing projects for grassroots sectors, pioneering urban theses in Latin America were gradually synthesized that are especially relevant today. For this reason the book clearly explores two sides of the architect in depth: His work on architectural objects per se (whether institutional or private buildings), and his work as a urban designer. This latter side started with small low-income housing projects and reached the formulation of significant portions of the city.

Not all urban projects materialized, and some remained unfinished, but seen as a whole one can understand that each one contributed to the next, and that architectural components, whether buildings or houses, were subordinated to the ultimate goal of creating urban spaces that are kind to citizens.

The materialization of an imagined city, the construction of a humanized city. This is, no doubt, Germán Samper´s main legacy. the editors

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Preliminary sketch, Colsubsidio Citadel, sector 1

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The story of the Acrobat and his Two Disciples Balkrishna Doshi

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his is a unique story of two disciples with distinct cultures and different backgrounds located worlds apart, on two different continents. They were brought together, perhaps by sheer coincidence, to learn and absorb the spirit of their Guru, The Acrobat, before returning to their own countries, Colombia (South America) and India.

That their apprenticeship with their Guru found them sitting in his studio one behind the other, constantly exchanging views and interpreting their Guru’s approach to design, is beyond mere coincidence; perhaps it should be called destiny.

Even though they were rarely in contact with each other after the completion of their apprenticeship, except for one short visit decades ago and a few telephone calls since then, their lives took similar turns over the next six decades, almost as if planned by fate.

It is thus not surprising to note how the seminal guidance of their Guru, Mons. Le Corbusier, affected and molded their entire lives, their thoughts and their approaches to the social and cultural aspects of their respective societies through their work in architecture, urban design and planning.

I am grateful to Germán, his wife Yolanda and their son Diego for asking me to write this story. I must confess that with the passage of time, the events that occurred between 1951 and 1954 at Mons. Le Corbusier’s Atelier are now difficult for me to recollect sequentially. But they have perhaps during this interval seeped into me and become part of my being, and so with your indulgence, I may stray somewhat in the telling of this tale.

I am from from Pune, a small city in India. In hindsight I realize that I burned all my bridges with my past when I suddenly chose to take up my education in Architecture. Even though this profession was alien to my middle class family, they grudgingly let me pursue it. I began in 1947 at the Sir J.J. School of Architecture in Bombay, located four hours away by train from Pune.

Left, Doshi and Samper, Le Corbusier, Pérez Chamis. © FLC

Soon, another momentous change occurred in my life, almost as if my karma had something else to offer. As if I was being pulled along, I left my education halfway through in order to obtain a diploma from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in London. Before I could even settle down to my studies in London, I unexpectedly visited the CIAM Congress at Hoddesdon (U.K.). With my limited exposure, I was unaware that this was a historic event in the making, and not being a CIAM member, I entered the vast exhibition area with hesitation. To my surprise, I saw a gentleman striding purposefully towards me as if to question me.

“Are you an Indian?” and, after hearing my response, he introduced himself as, “Germán Samper, from Bogotá, Colombia. I am working for Mons.

Le Corbusier on the plan for Chandigarh, a new capital for Punjab. Do you know anything about it?” Continuing without waiting for my answer, he asked, “What does Chandigarh mean?”

“Chandi is the name of our Goddess and perhaps Chandigarh was named after her,” I answered. After a few minutes of his explanations of sketches and plans, I don’t know what made me ask, but I asked Germán if he would like to see my portfolio. Then naively, without realizing the implications, I asked Germán if I could work with Mons. Le Corbusier, a man about whom I knew almost nothing and nor had I yet obtained a professional degree. He considered and after a moment Germán asked me to apply to Mons.

Le Corbusier in my own handwriting.

To my utter surprise I received a positive answer for work as a trainee without pay for eight months. As if to affirm the outcome and give me strength, I remembered the Indian saying, “when the disciple is ready the Guru appears.”

I arrived at 35 rue de Sèvres on an afternoon soon thereafter, despite my acute financial limitations and not knowing a soul in Paris, nor a word of French. I was a man possessed! “How unexpected! Even without a formal letter you have arrived Mons. Doshi,” exclaimed Mme Jean. Perhaps she recognized me upon seeing an Indian with a heavy leather suitcase. She immediately ushered me to Mons. Le Corbusier‘s first floor Atelier located above the Church corridor.

Upon seeing me, Germán greeted me as a long lost family member and took me into the narrow and deep studio. He introduced me to every colleague until, near the back of the studio, he pointed to the third table and said, “Doshi, this will be your table, just behind me. I will talk to you in English. Don’t you worry.”

“Perhaps I should find you a hotel nearby for few days, let’s go!”

Without asking, Germán carried my suitcase and found me a small hotel. He spoke to the manager, checked my room and sat on the chair. After a while he gave me his phone number, assuring me that he would pick me up the next day. Then he reluctantly left, perhaps hesitating to infringe upon my privacy, yet deep inside empathizing with my predicament of being in a strange new place without speaking a word of French.

Often remembering those days I wonder at how lucky I have been to have met Germán Samper, who guided me at the start of my most unexpected and eventful journey with my Guru.

I was the first Indian to work with Mons. Le Corbusier, the youngest in both age and experience at the office. Not knowing French was my biggest handicap. For weeks I did not know what they were saying or discussing until I started picking up a smattering of French. Being a strict vegetarian with limited funds, I avoided joining them for lunch and resorted to eating olives, cheese and bread with a Greek draftsman who could speak only Greek and French.

Initiation Although our day at the Atelier began at 9 am, I would arrive early, have hot chocolate or tea and a croissant, and start work early. I would routinely begin by going around the tables to see everyone’s drawings. Since I had never seen Mons.Le Corbusier’s books, nor photographs of his buildings before joining him, it enabled me to become familiar with his way of thinking. There was something else that fascinated me at the office. I saw in everyone’s eyes and gestures a deep sense of camaraderie, a sense of freedom and unspoken affection, both for each other and for the work they were doing.

My education in the Atelier began with André Maissonnier, the senior architect. Upon my arrival he gave me a large tracing showing several sections and elevations of the portico walls in the High Court entrance. André could not speak English nor could I speak French. Germán came to my rescue and explained to me what Andre wanted me to do.

Seeing those tracings of the High Court I wondered what I should draw or where I should even begin. What solutions was I expected to discover in the thick, white portico walls?. Nervous, and never exposed to such drawings, I tried to redraw alternative elevations. My ink lines appeared uneven, despite my attempts to erase them with a razor blade, then rub the area with my fingernail and redraw. My nervousness increased. I didn’t know who to ask for help.

Luckily, Germán turned around and guided me saying, “Doshi don’t you worry.

When Monsieur arrives, he will show you how and what to design. I too have gone through this phase before.” What a way to learn architecture! I was worried about whether I would be able to satisfy Mons. Le Corbusier..

Ten days later Monsieur arrived, stood in front of my table, and looked at me and the drawing on my table. Realizing my state, he smiled and speaking slowly in careful English as if to a child, he gestured, pushed me aside, pulled up a stool and sat. “Show me the drawing,” he said. Taking the large tracing sheet full of sections and elevations, he tore a piece from the yellow tracing roll. With colored pencils in one hand and the other hand on the tracing paper, he started drawing and explaining to me “so and so and so” as if we were in a classroom.

This was my first lesson on how to judge scale, create speaking walls and make people move in a particular direction. I concluded that transforming static into dynamic surfaces, creating varied scales and establishing connections with surroundings is the most essential part of architecture,.

“Didn’t I tell you Monsieur loves you,” exclaimed Germán, “We have never seen him sit so patiently and for so long at one table. Perhaps he enjoys talking to you in English, which he rarely does.” I had been listening so intently, I hadn’t noticed Germán standing beside me.

around and the external world was purposefully ignored. So were his reflections on his past works. Monsieur worked as if for the first time, a novice looking at things afresh. He wanted to find new tools, new ways to approach architecture.

The Atelier was simultaneously tackling various scales, functions and locations. Perhaps this was the way Monsieur was challenging himself.

Germán Samper, at Le Corbusier Atelier, París,1950. © FLC

Returning home I felt as if I had seen a short sequence of a movie, or some scenes from a story. At first I felt like I was seeing with my ears and hearing through my eyes.

This was a new adventurous period in the life of Mons. Le Corbusier. After the trouble during the Second World War, this was the period when Monsieur received a unique commission to plan and design Chandigarh, the capital of the newly formed state of Punjab.

He had to reinvent himself in order to design a suitable typology for the recently independent India, and he had aspirations to discover himself in the global context. Mons. Le Corbusier was commissioned to design the High Court, the Legislative Assembly, the Secretariat and the Governor’s Palace. In addition, he had received four unique commissions in Ahmedabad, Gujarat: an office building for the Ahmedabad Millowners Association; a city museum for Ahmedabad; and three private residences, which Monsieur called palaces, the Houses for the families of Mme Sarabhai, Mr. Surottam Hutheesing and Mr. Chinubhai Chimanlal.

I recall how anxious and nervous I was to greet my senior colleagues the next day. So many nationalities all of different ages and all well acquainted with Mons. Le Corbusier’s way of working. Yanis Xenakis, a Greek engineer, architect and an avant garde musician, later on to become my close friend, was working on structures and climatic studies. Rogelio Salmona, a Colombian architect, was working on housing. André Maissonnier, a French architect and a senior in the Atelier, was working on the High Court at Chandigarh. Jacques Michel from France was working on the Sarabhai house, and of course my friend Germán Samper from Colombia was working on the Assembly, the Secretariat, the Governor’s Palace and the Capitol Complex master plan. Germán was almost in charge of the Chandigarh projects.

There were constant discussions of Indian culture and tradition, the lifestyle and habits of people, and the unique climate, with it’s scorching summers, heavy monsoons and humidity. Upon his arrival, Monsieur had drawn a climatic grid of wind direction, temperature and the movement of the sun. Every day I could hear about how a new expression had to be discovered. There was enthusiasm all

This reinvention or rediscovery must have preoccupied him, otherwise why should he include persons like us? Working in India in an alien environment, where great history, tradition and culture prevail, Monsieur perhaps thought that young minds with different backgrounds would think, would raise questions about his earlier philosophy and Works, and would suggest fresh new approaches. In addition, Mons. Le Corbusier was constantly evolving and was fond of devising new approaches to each situation. Germán and I were lucky to have been accepted to help fulfill the challenge of rethinking earlier assumptions. This new discovery of India’s virtues made Monsieur seek a pact with nature. Constantly he would say, “I want to have a pact with nature.”

Reconnecting culture Often I felt nervous, but seeing Germán I would feel confident.

He would always come to my drawing board and guide me. Although Monsieur spoke with me in his cryptic English, Germán would help me understand the implications.

Germán and I often discussed how we could acquire and transform the experiences of Monsieur into our own works. How does Monsieur manage to capture the essence of what he has learned. I often noticed how consistently he observed, drew sketches, interpreted and transformed them into drawings or buildings. “Shouldn’t we follow this example?” I said. “We have scarcity of materials, and this will compel us to invent in the same way Monsieur does. Germán, don’t you recall Monsieur saying, ‘While in India I too follow the custom of using only one bucket full of water for my bath and eating Indian food with my hands.’ Didn’t he observe the many ways in which Indians use their clothing, the dhoti that men wear or the sari that women wear?

How much variety there is in a standardized product! Didn’t he also say how he noticed small shops stacked one on top of another. Not believing how small the space of these shops seemed, he stretched himself between two parallel walls to check and it reconfirmed his belief in providing smaller cubicles, narrower doors, and service spaces to accentuate major spaces.”

Every day there was a new and most unexpected experience for us. So much uncertainty was followed by curiosity, enthusiasm and a sense of wonder. An action by Monsieur would make our day. We never felt rushed, nor any obligation to finish. It was like an ongoing symphony, music with several instruments was being played. Varied

Lunch at André Maissonnier’s country house. Among them, Le Corbusier, Maissonnier, Xenakis, Salmona, Serralta, Clemot and Samper. París, around 1952. © FLC

scales and images poured forth, along with myriad alternatives. Every time Monsieur arrived he looked fresh and full of dreams. He usually worked with only one or two assistants, as if it had been predetermined, or planned during his early morning solitudes, no one could tell.

Monsieur’s freshness and his courageous, avant garde approach affected us and made us more conscious of what we ought to do.

When telling stories of our life at the Atelier, I still recount how Mons. Le Corbusier taught us to simultaneously see several configurations drawn in diagrammatic studies, and how he transformed those diagrams and volumes - especially of the Governors Palace, drawn by Germán into some of the most memorable pieces of architecture. No one would ever have dreamed such an architectural masterpiece, so full of surprise.

How often I recount another story of how Monsieur converted handicaps into advantages. “Accept, integrate, rediscover,” he told us.

During the construction of the Secretariat building the Chandigarh engineers demanded additional vertical supports for the deeper overhangs. Germán and Yanis were struggling to find alternative solutions without radically changing the character of the ministerial block. Seeing them struggle, Monsieur took fresh tracing paper, added the extra columns and redrew the existing façade without any change. Adding another piece of paper, he combined both solutions and created a most unexpected façade which everyone admired. “Never accept what you have designed as final. There is always a richer solution waiting.” Monsieur’s remark still rings in my ears. I am sure that at this moment many similar stories must be passing through Germán’s mind.

(l-r) Saquinir Dis, Maissonnier, Takamasa, Samper, Pérez Chanís, Doshi, Xenakis

Without our realizing it, days, months and years passed under Monsieurs guidance, and made us both what we are today. Even after a gap of six decades, I feel as if it was only a few days ago that Germán, Yolanda and I met. How often I recount our days together to my wife Kamala and our three daughters. Without Germán and Yolanda, I would have not seen the Paris he showed me. Even now, when I visit, I remember them driving me around the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalids. Those weekend trips, the meals I had in their apartment and the conversations we had about transforming the Colombian and Indian situations, still ring in my ears.

. © FLC

Le Corbusier, in the utmost sense of the word, was an inventor. He was a producer of ideas, as evident in the significance of his architectural and urban works. From a simple retreat for vacationing students, to the remodeling plan of Paris, Le Corbusier’s work is universal in character.

Germán Samper “Le Corbusier, up close and personal.”

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n contrast with the emphasis solely on design typical of most architects, Germán Samper has also dedicated a significant amount of his professional life to reflection on his work1. In the many books, articles, and magazines in which Germán has been published, he has always paid tribute to the five years he spent working in the Atelier 35 rue de Sèvres in Paris; a period of crucial importance to his architecture and career. The years spent there from 1948 to 1953 are referenced more frequently when discussing Germán’s training as an architect, with relatively fewer allusions made about his formal studies at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia2. Do we know what work Samper undertook during his five years at the Le Corbusier workshop in Paris? Considering that Samper repeatedly mentions this period of his life, it is a question of great interest. Which building projects did Samper work on? Who were his colleagues in the office? What was the nature of his relationship with the Maestro? These are some of the questions raised by this article, and answering them is up to the reader, based upon the links and relationships described here and in the other articles within this book, but more than anything else, in the evidence of Samper’s own work.

35 rue de Sèvres María Cecilia O’Byrne

We know that Samper’s relationship with Le Corbusier started the day that the Swiss architect arrived in Bogotá on July 16th, 1947. Samper, along with a group of students, was at the airport upon his arrival shouting, “Long live Le Corbusier! Down with the Academy!” In spite of his rudimentary French at the time, Samper attended the public activities that Le Corbusier held during his first visit to the city, one that lasted eight days. Samper, who was in his last year of university at the time recounts: In Bogotá, a change in the School of Architecture was taking place.

The students refused to design houses in the same style that was being built in the city at that time. We had found some books in the library that made us think that something new was being born in architecture.

Particularly a small book, not as well edited as House and Garden, had opened our eyes that until that moment were “des yeux qui ne voient pas,” or “eyes that do not see.” This book was “Towards an Architecture”, which invited us to think of a building of this century as a turbine aircraft or transatlantic ocean liner as opposed to a Venetian candelabra, a royal chariot, or a salad bowl from Sèvres. To our

fig. 1. Photograph of Le Corbusier signed to Germán Samper. © FLC

1 Amongst others, the most important writings are: Recinto Urbano. La humanización de la Ciudad, Escala, Bogotá 1997; La Arquitectura y la Ciudad. Apuntes de Viaje. Escala, Bogotá 1986; Recopilación de artículos y conferencias sobre arquitectura, Bogotá: [s. n.], 1970; “Le Corbusier de cerca”, in: Revista La Torre, Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1966, pp. 53-64. Interviews in: Maria Cecilia O’Byrne and Ricardo Daza, “El Plan Piloto visto por Germán Samper”, in: Le Corbusier en Bogotá, 1947-1951. Precisiones en torno al Plan Director. Volume 2. Universidad de los Andes and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá 2010, pp. 138-159; Conversations de Arquitectura Colombiana, V.2. Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá 2006, pp. 101-116.

2 Regarding his years of study in La Nacional, Samper especially remembers professors Leopoldo Rother, Bruno Violi and Jorge Sanín Arango. They were the ones that introduced a select number of students to what was current in architecture in Europe and North America, what has been called “The Modern Movement”, unlike what was normally taught in the faculty where students had to “learn to design in any style”. I say, “select” because amongst Samper classmates are Hernán Vieco, Guillermo Bermúdez, Jaime Ponce and Dicken Castro. See: “Germán Samper Gnecco, Conversation 12, December of 2000”, in: Conversaciones de arquitectura Colombiana, p. 104.

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surprise, one day we found out through a newspaper source that the author of that transcendental book was coming to visit. The Maestro, who came as the guest of officials , found himself unexpectedly besieged by students that did not abandon him at anytime during his stay in Bogotá.3 Samper tells that the presence of the “architect” along with his lectures4 and declarations helped shape his architectural life. So much so that he decided that somehow he would go to Paris to work in Le Corbusier’s workshop. Deciding this sounds easy; doing so was a huge task for anyone, let alone a man that presents himself as a shy boy, having only limited knowledge of French. The first step was to learn the language. Samper took classes during the year after Le Corbusier’s visit to Bogotá and received a French government grant to study in France. This took place during his first year after graduating in architecture from Bogotá’s Universidad Nacional, when he was working for the Colombian Ministry of Public Works. One of the first jobs he had to do was the reconstruction of two downtown buildings affected by the disturbances of April 9th 1948, where political leader Gaitan was murdered.

By then Samper already knew that Paris was his destiny. In June of 1948 he was informed that he had won a grant and that in November of that year he would be embarking by ship towards the Cote d’Azur, and from there, a train would take him to Paris.

fig. 2. Ascoral: Grille CIAM d’Urbanisme cover page. Mise en Pratique de la Charte d’Athènes, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, París, 1948. © FLC.

workshop’s presentation for the VII CIAM. Samper immediately started working without Le Corbusier knowing that a new collaborator had joined the team.

Thus, the first Atelier project that Samper worked on was the presentation of the CIAM Grid. Let us remember that the central area of interest during the VII CIAM, the second one held after World War II, was the “Athens Charter applied” and “Synthesis of the Major Arts”.7

I had to choose an institute in Paris, and so I chose the institute of Urbanism. I arrived and attended for about 15 days in order to pretend… then I asked to see the chief of the institute and told him that I wanted to work with Le Corbusier, and that I believed I was wasting my time learning about drain pipes and other monotonous subjects. He replied by saying that they wanted to make good use of my time, but that they could not call Le Corbusier and ask him to hire me, instead he suggested I try to get in by myself and continue with the grant.5

International Congresses on Modern Architecture (CIAM) Samper’s part in the preparation of the documentation for the Congress was not major, especially given that at that moment Le Corbusier was not even aware of the young architect’s existence. It is important to emphasize that this was the first of three CIAM Congresses that Samper attended during his stay in Paris.

When asked what his responsibilities for the Bergamo congress were, Samper replies that he helped with the CIAM Grid drawings (fig.1). It should be noted that the CIAM Grid was a methodology of presentation proposed by Le Corbusier after the Congress of Bridgewater in 1947, where the necessity of having a common method for presenting urban projects became apparent.

Some of the necessities had been implemented as formal rules during the Athens CIAM of 1933; such as types of drawings and what inks to be used in the 33 proposed projects.

Due to the disturbances of the 9th of April in Bogotá, another young man named Rogelio Salmona - also an architecture student at the Universidad Nacional, of French origin who arrived in Bogotá at the age of four - had left his studies and thanks to the connections that his parents managed to make during Le Corbusier’s visit to Bogotá, he was given a spot to work in the famous Atelier 35 rue de Sèvres, which Le Corbusier along with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret had opened in 1922. The way in which Samper is admitted into Atelier is not the most orthodox, but it was incredibly easy:

Juana Salcedo8 states that,

I showed up unexpectedly asking for a job. I was rejected very discretely, since I had no place in the workshop. I did not go on a hunger strike in the Hindu sense of asking for an opportunity; I didn’t know the system. I decided to patiently wait for a better occasion and it presented itself two months later. At night, they needed volunteers to make sketches for the congress of the CIAM, which would take place in Bergamo, Italy. I started to work at nights, then in the afternoons. Slowly they got used to my presence and in this way I entered clandestinely, never having been officially accepted.6

the reticule was presented in Bergamo as a modern tool of analysis, synthesis, and presentation of a subject; its multiple presentational options were highlighted: as a classifying dossier; as a presentational diagram; and as a folding poster9. It represented the Athens Charter (published by Le Corbusier in 1942) put into practice, while also serving as evidence of the continuous endeavors of CIAM towards a functional city10. The Grid was configured vertically arising from the four functions of the living space (those that are considered determinants for 7 On the subject see: Eric Munford, The CIAM discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 2000.

8 Juana Salcedo et al., “Las grillas CIAM y MARS en el Plan Piloto de Bogotá”, 1950-1951, in AA.VV Le Corbusier in Bogotá, 1947-1951. Details about the Master Plan, Universidad de los Andes, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá 2010, p. 189.

9 Ascoral, Grile CIAM d’Urbanisme. Mise en Pratique de la Charte d’Athenes, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Paris 1948, p. 10.

10 Le Groupe CIAM-France, Urbanisme des CIAM. La Charte d’Athenes. Avec un discours liminaire de Hean Giraudoux, Plon, Paris 1943. Trans. Eng,. Principles of Urbanism: The Athens Charter. Introductory Speech by Jean Giraudoux, Ediciones Apóstrofe, Colección Poseidón, Barcelona 1987.

It was Rogelio Salmona, whom Samper met in Paris, who introduced him to George Candilis, who was the person in charge of the Le Corbusier 3 Germán Samper, Le Corbusier de cerca, op. cit., p. 53.

4 Le Corbusier Bogotá conferences can be found transcribed and in audio in: AA.VV., Le Corbusier in Bogotá, 1947-1951. Volume II and DVD., op. cit.

5 Conversaciones de arquitectura Colombiana, op.cit., p. 105.

6 Germán Samper, Le Corbusier de cerca, op.cit., p. 54.

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fig. 3. Ascoral: Presentation grid proposed for CIAM VII at Bérgamo. © FLC.

urban form). Each function was assigned a color: living space (green), work (red), cultivation of the mind and body (blue), circulation (yellow), in conjunction with a miscellaneous column. Horizontally, ten subjects were proposed for the city: 1. environment, 2. land occupation, 3. built area and use of the spatial environment, 4. equipment, 5. ethics and aesthetics, 6. economic and social impact, 7. legislation, financing, 8. stages of construction, 9. miscellaneous, and 10. reactions to rational and emotional subjects. (fig.3) The intersection of subjects and functions created a series of rectangular divisions that could be used in their totality or partially for each issue, allowing the approximation to a wide range of urban questions.11 With this tool, urban projects would be analyzed systematically, configuring a new method based on specific issues expressed in a standardized language.12

to have Fernando Londoño (Colombian ambassador to France) introduce him to the Maestro with the purpose of obtaining the long awaited job opportunity. The encounter happened unplanned when the ambassador, Le Corbusier, and Samper randomly met in the doorway of the Atelier; also the moment Le Corbusier realized that he had an unknown collaborator. From that day on Samper became a member of the group of professionals among whom were Salmona, Maissonnier, Gardien, Solomita, Clemot, Oleck, Xenakis, Perez, and Michel, with André Wogenscky as the director of the Atelier13.

When planning the trip to Bergamo, Le Corbusier suggested to his Colombian collaborators that they travel through Italy. A study trip (fig.4) such as the ones he embarked upon during his youth. For this trip, Le Corbusier recommended it be taken without a camera and to instead pack their suitcases with notebooks, pencils, and colored pencils. Freehand drawing, from this new period in his life, and to this date, became one of Samper’s most precious habits. In his travel notes, Samper mentions that Le Corbusier stated that once a person draws a line on a piece of paper, they are already making an analysis; it is a process. Pablo Solano, another Colombian in Paris, accompanied them on the trip through Italy. Solano made it to Rome, Salmona to Napoli, and Samper accompanied by Carlos Dupuy continued towards Sicily, North Africa and Tunisia.14

Germán Samper tested the Grid on two different occasions, when he created the technical reports for Bogotá and South Marseille projects in the Atelier. Samper never used it in his own professional practice. Could it be possible that this experience made a mark on his work? Let us first take a look the other two CIAMs that Samper attended and the works in which he participated in thereafter, before jumping to conclusions.

Already a member of the group of professionals that officially worked at 35 rue de Sèvres, (though without salary, thanks to the scholarship that had taken him to Paris) Samper traveled to Bergamo. Samper achieved this in an unusual way. Given that by that time there was already a direct communication between the Colombian government and Le Corbusier, Samper managed 11 12

13 Wogenscky begins to work with Le Corbusier in 1936 and finishes in 1956. He goes from being an assistant, to chief of the Atelier and, finally, Assistant Architect. He would become Samper’s direct boss during his stay in Paris.

14 Samper says that the exercise of comparing his and Salmona’s drawings (from the same angle) has never been done, in order to appreciate the different ways of perceiving the same, in the same place and almost with the same education. The analysis that Samper himself has done on this area of his work can be found in Architecture and The City.

Travel Notes, op. cit. In this book, the reader will find Ricardo Daza’s interpretation on this subject.

CIAM Grid, op. cit. p. 6 lbid.

fig. 4. Germán Samper: plan drawing of a square at Bérgamo, during the VII CIAM. fig. 5. Le Corbusier: Hypothetical reconstruction of the Mars Grill of Bogotá’s downtown (plaza de Bolívar), to be shown at the VIII CIAM in Hoddesdon, 1951. © FLC – Grupo de Investigación Proyecto, Ciudad y Arquitectura de la Universidad de los Andes (GI–PCA).

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The second CIAM attended by Samper was CIAM VIII, which took place in Hoddesdon, England. This time around Samper extensively participated in the preparation of the projects presented, under the theme of “The Heart of the City.” The series of plans prepared for this congress included the Civic Centre of Bogotá, with the MARS Grid (fig.5) presented in a new format15. Along with a set of general plans of the Civic Centre, the Grid also included a detailed plan of the buildings surrounding Plaza de Bolivar, with emphasis on their uses, old and new, circulation (vehicles and pedestrian separation), day and night, Sunday and ceremonial activities. This version of the Civic Centre differs from the technical report and the one published

by J. L. Sert in the congress’s final book. Samper says that he had to do it in London as requested by the general secretary of the event, Jackelin Tyrwhitt.

It is a plan with lots of information (fig.6): the expansion of the Plaza de Bolivar is larger than on the initial proposal. The new esplanade is much larger since the Building of Ministries goes form being located between Calles 9 and 10 to Calle 8 and 9. Occupying this new space is the proposal for the Presidential Palace, which in the first version had been located on Carrera 4 between Calles 10 and 11. Likewise, the building for the Palace of Justice goes from being a skyscraper to a building lower in stature, matching the height of the Cathedral. This proposal was accompanied by the first elevations and the only plan drawing in existence of the Civic Centre; one that was commenced by Samper’s tracing over a photograph and only completed later with tweaking by Le Corbusier’s own hand.

fashioned street) was the problem at hand. It seemed that the MARS Grid, more than a methodology of presentation, as with the CIAM, was a way of facing the discussion that takes place congressionally with regards to the advantages and disadvantages of this means of city conception. In fact, the other project that Le Corbusier brought to Hoddesdon was Chandigarh, where he did not just display one “heart” of the city, but eight. Samper drew this plan. (fig. 41, p. 33).

In Hoddesdon Samper met a young architect from India by the name of Balkrishna Doshi (fig.9), the beginning of a very important friendship for both architects. It was Samper who suggested to Le Corbusier -who had already signed a contract with the Indian Government to carry out a project for the new capital of the Punjab, that it would be important to have a local architect in the Atelier. Doshi asked Samper to aid him in obtaining work with Le Corbusier in spite of not having the slightest knowledge of French. Le Corbusier accepted. Being colleagues meant for Samper and Doshi that they had the space to share their enthusiasm for the work of Le Corbusier and to initiate the beautiful friendship that would ensue. It also meant that they would both lead parallel careers back in their respective home countries. They had careers that focused on carrying out institutional and corporate projects of great magnitude, and also focused a great deal on research to better understand and provide solutions to the housing problem for low-income populations. One can guess that both Doshi and Samper discovered the ‘what’ in the Atelier de la rue de Sèvres. Neither of them followed Le Corbusier’s proposals directly, but neither forgot that the building of homes is the fabric of a city.

What is interesting about the MARS Grid is that it no longer pretends to show the entire urban project. It is about showing how with the proposed uses, this proposed downtown is perfectly alive during the 7 days of the week and for the majority of the day it is literally “The Heart of the City.” It is evident that in Hoddesdon there was already a group of architects who declared that urban theories -those of CIAM in general, and Le Corbusier in particular- were mistaken in that they created problems for large portions of the city. Zoning (divisions of habitat, work, cultivation, mind and spirit, and circulation, etc.) and conception of building from the ‘empty’ (the theory of the 7V) as opposed to the ‘full’ (plots and the old15

The third congress that Samper attended was in 1952, CIAM IX, which took place in Aix-en-Provence France, where the central theme was “Housing”. His role during this congress was as an organizer. Samper tells that he was in charge of all the lodging and greeting of each of the attendees.

He remembers very little of the themes discussed, but he remarks on one such experience in detail that took place at the end of the congress. There was a train strike and Samper’s pay, which was sent by train, didn’t arrive.

He had no money and with him were his wife and first-born son, then a

MARS, CIAM group in England, Modern Architecture Research Group.

fig. 6. Le Corbusier: detail of Bogotá’s Civic Centre. Drawing published in the memoirs of the VIII CIAM, edited by Josep Lluís Sert (p. 152). The drawing, made in London, is by Samper. Le Corbusier says: “Plan of Bogotá’s new administrative hearth, to be develop around the actual one. The original Plaza de Bolivar, were the cathedral (2) and Parliament (3) are set, will be enlarged and around it the new City Hall (6), the Ministries, in a single skyscraper, and the Presidential Palace (7). The new Plaza will be built at various levels, linked by ramps and reserved only for pedestrians”. © FLC.

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Roc and Rob, Roquebrune-Cap Martin, France (1949)18

newborn. He wrote a letter to Le Corbusier who was at his vacation house in Cap Martin; he immediately sent him an envelope with money and instructions to go to Marseilles where he was to stay for a month in a large model apartment that was nearly finished. It could be said that one of the first inhabitants of the Unité d’Habitation de Marseille (fig.9) was Samper and family. He was also left a Citroën that a Venezuelan architect had to leave behind after a rushed departure. Samper then drove back to Paris.

For Samper the Unité is one of the buildings in which one can clearly see the difference between Le Corbusier the “purist”, and a new epoch in his career that coincides with Samper’s arrival in the Atelier.

Consisting of two nearby projects and sites with the same use, home for vacations. The first one is Rob (fig. 9), on terrain belonging to Thomas Rebutato, owner of the restaurant “L’Etoile de Mer,” next to which Le Corbusier built his famous Cabanon in 1951. The project consists of a set of 6 artist studios with a group of 12 rooms for guests. The second one, Roc (fig. 10), is a tourist project, larger in scale, where the idea of building a holiday citadel is explored; thirty to eighty apartments, a restaurant, and various leisure facilities, all of which are on an inclined terrain close to the Roquebrune. Le Corbusier worked on both projects at the same time, in conjunction with a third, that was never built, in Sainte Baume19. His main concern, as he wrote, was to solve the problem of housing proliferation that was starting to appear in the Cote d’Azur, causing pollution and endangering the landscape. It was evident that people wanted to build in the area due to its wonderful scenery and hospitable weather; the challenge was to do so without destroying the natural surroundings.

This is why the project proposed conservation areas. It also proposed to study small towns that occupied the uppermost regions of the coast, in order to learn of the impeccable manner in which they adapted to the area. Le Corbusier states:

The architecture of Le Corbusier changed for me at the time I started in the Atelier. I don’t know if, by seeing him work closely I grew closer and closer to the intimacy of the projects, or maybe because Le Corbusier himself had evolved and was entering a new period in his career.

I think it was both. The sensation of rigor, precision, discipline, and dogma that emanated from his work prior to the Second World War transforms when looked upon closely. Le Corbusier was deeply human in his decisions. He always worked for the sake of humanity and not for mere aesthetics. His concerns where scale, climate, ambiance, and comfort. The extreme industrial nature of the Ville Radieuse becomes humanized in the Cité Radieuse of Marseille. The cold and severe metallic windows, symbols of the mechanical precision of the Swiss Pavilion, give way to the wooden, almost artisanal character, of the windows of Marseille. The perfection of the cement and steal structure of the Swiss Pavilion melds against the rough cement of Marseille. Le Corbusier rejoiced in the imperfections of the exterior of his structure since they made him feel the hand of the artisan.16

… le site architectural y est fait de maisons toutes accolees les unes aux autres, mais dont les yeux (les fenetres) ouvrent tous sur l’horizon infini20.

The task that Samper shared with Rogelio Salmona21 consisted of drawing the different versions of these projects. According to Chimabretto, the first phase of the project consisted of defining the model of occupation, whilst the second was to take this model to both terrains, but it never reached the construction plan phase.

Samper tells that the habitual manner of working in Le Corbusier’s office was composed of the Maestro arriving with small drawings, made in his travel notebooks. Such was the case for this project. The first known drawings of these projects were a few of Le Corbusier’s sketches from September 1949, which he himself published at a later date in the book ‘Complete Works’ (fig.12). From these small sketches, the collaborators had to create drafts to scale. Once the process had advanced, Wogenscky, boss of the Atelier, would leave a small sign on the desk of the collaborator who, that day, would meet with Le Corbusier in his 2.26 x 2.26m office. Samper tells that Le Corbusier would arrive with a bunch of colored pencils in hand and with them, on his sketch, would start discussing the work realized over previous days. (fig 11)

The Projects Samper worked on 13 projects during his five years in Le Corbusier’s Atelier. These projects are: Roc and Rob, Roquebrune-Cap Martin, France (1949), Master Plan for Bogotá (1949-1951), South Marseille (1951), Chandigarh (the general project, (1951)), Capitol Hill (19510, The Secretariat (1951-1953), The Assembly (1951-1953), The Courthouse (1951-1953), arborization (1952), bus plan (1953), downtown (1953), Jaoul Houses (1951-1953), and the housing study “La Citadelle” in Hem (Roubaix) France (1952-1953). Let us take a look at some17.

16 Samper, “Le Corbusier de cerca”, op. cit., pp. 61-62.

17 Without a doubt, a detailed study of all the projects in which Samper was a part of at the Atelier is necessary. Nevertheless, the scope of this article is not enough to give a detailed study of each project, therefore, taking into account the importance that collective housing had on Samper’s work I attempt to only outline some excerpts of the collective housing projects that Samper was a part of, which I believe can lead to the current method of dealing with these types of assignments.

It is important to mention that the module in which the projects of Roc and Rob were developed is the very module Le Corbusier was working with when he was finishing the publication of the first edition of the renown book Modulor22. The project consisted in realizing the possibilities of a union between the modules of 2.26x2.26m, metallic in structure, creating varia18 Project published in: Le Corbusier, Œuvre Complète 1946-1953, Girsberger, Zurich 1953, pp. 54-61; Bruno Chiambretto, “Roc et Rob, 1949” in: Le Corbusier Plans, Volume 9, Echelle-1 and Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris 2005; and, “Roq et Rob: la question de l’adaptation au site” in: AA.VV,. Le Corbusier une encyclopédie, sous la direction de Jacques Lucan, éditions du Centre Georges-Pompidou/CCI, Paris 1987, pp. 352-353.

19 Œuvre Complète 1946-1952, ib., pp. 24-36.

20 Ib. p. 54.

21 In the Atelier de la rue de Sèvres there existed a book similar to the ones accountants use, where all collaborators had to write down all finished architectural drawings that left the workshop: projects acronym, content, drawn by, and date. It is from this book, known as the “Livre noir” where one can extract with greater accuracy the projects and architectural drawings that Samper worked on as well as any other collaborator, in the Atelier, from 1925 to 1965. See: FLC S1-16-1.

22 Le Corbusier, Le Modulor: essai sur une mesure harmonique a l’échelle humaine aplicable universellement á l’årchitecture es a la mécanique, L’Árchiteture d’aujourd’hiu, Collection Ascoral, Bolougne 1950.

fig. 7. drawing of the Unité d’Habitation de Marseille apartment were Germán Samper and his familia stayed for a month in 1953. fig. 8. Germán Samper drawing of the roof, Unité d’Habitation de Marseille, 1953.

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tions inside of a grid, which had its base on the terraces. In Rob, the grid created by the uneven terrain and the 2.26m modules ran parallel to the coast, creating long spaces that faced the sea. A series of patios, one large in scale to shape the complex, and interior patios in Mediterranean tradition, were the variant that Le Corbusier proposed. These structures opposed the huge villas that had been populating the area from the 19th Century, which Le Corbusier condemned because traditional characteristics of the topography had been ignored (fig.13).

Another important aspect of this work is the emphasis put on the study of variants that are achieved from the base cell. Several studies indicate the importance that Le Corbusier placed on being able to obtain as many solutions from a single model. In this case it was the longitudinal housing complex with patio over an inclined territory. For this study, the 6 variants of Rob (fig..

14-19) are basic in order to understand how to create units that range from 100 to 245m2, including different placements of patios (fig. 21), which serve as the base to imagine possible morphological variations subsequently studied in the Roq proposal.

fig.9. Le Corbusier: Rob, five artists studios with guest rooms in Cap-Martin. General location. © FLC 18848 fig.10. Le Corbusier: Roq, holiday houses complex, near Roquebrune. General location with three different options. The central courtyard is constant, around which the complex is ordered, as well as the stairs that cross it and link the road with the beach. A parking lot and pedestrian paths are also constant. Drawing by Salmona and Samper, December 15, 1949. © FLC 18.734

Master Plan for Bogotá (1949-1951) The theme of variations upon one model was a task Samper faced over and over again in the Atelier. The next project he was assigned, in which he worked with Rogelio Salmona and another just-arrived Colombian architect; the procurement and implementation process for the Plan for Bogotá project.

The name of the newly arriving Colombian was Reinaldo Valencia23.

fig.11. Le Corbusier: Roq, sketch of the general project plan with the color drawings that Le Corbusier used to do on top of his collaborators’ works. © FLC 18757

The urgency for starting the plan of reconstruction of downtown Bogotá following the disturbances of April 9th 1948 led authorities to look for a group that could create a Regulatory Plan for Bogotá. The plan was based upon one serving as a general reference for the city, according to Colombian Law 88 of 1947. Partners of Town Planning Associates, Josep Lluis Sert and Paul Lester Wienner, were already in the country developing two plans: Tumaco and Medellín. Sert worked at the Atelier during the end of the 1920s and accompanied Le Corbusier with the foundation and development of CIAM since 1929. Mazuera, the Mayor, contacts mentor and pupil and it is decided that a union between the ideas of Le Corbusier (Master Plan), with the detailed execution by Sert (Regulatory Plan), was the perfect formula for the urban planning proposal of Bogotá, with the support of local architects, through the office of the Regulatory Plan for Bogotá.

fig.12. Le Corbusier: Sketch with the first ideas for the Roc project, September 1949, and published in Volume 5, Œuvre Complète: “Le parti urbanistique est fixé: un terrain en pente, des alvéoles ouvertes vers le paysage”. © FLC fig.13. Le Corbusier, Roq, Drawing of the general view of the project as seen from the sea, showing the presence of Rocquebrune. Drawing by Samper and Salmona and published in Volume 5, Œuvre Complète. © FLC

In February of 1949 Le Corbusier, Sert, and Wienner met in Bogotá to sign the contract with the authorities. The process of producing the project involved a series of meetings and trips. Additionally, based upon what he had seen throughout his journeys, Le Corbusier then asked the OPRB for information to better understand the problems and the reality of the city for which he was to develop the Master Plan.

23 The first architectural drawings signed by Salmona and Samper from the Bogotá project are from February 1950. The first time that Valencia appears in the Livre Noir is on April 17 of the same year with the drawing BOG 4197 Division Secteur. This data is interesting, because according to the known story Le Corbusier meets with Wienner, Sert, and Ritter en Cap Martin in August of 1949 and there they decided the outline of the general plan. Therefore, what happens in between August of 1949 and February of 1950 when Samper and Salmona start working on the drawings? In fact, knowing that the Colombian architects were collaborating on two projects not commissioned was not a priority. On different aspects of the project see: AA.VV. Le Corbusier in Bogotá, 1947-1951. Volumes 1 and 2, op. cit.; Hernando Vargas et all., Le Corbusier in Colombia, Cementos Boyacá, Bogotá 1987; Rodrigo Cortés, “De Paso por la Ciudad del Plan Piloto”, in the catalogue of the exhibition Bogotá 1950: El Plan Director de Le Corbusier, SCA, Uniandes, Unal, Bogotá 1988. And, Fernando Pérez, Le Corbusier and South America, ARG., Santiago de Chile 1991.

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fig. 14. Le Corbusier: L CM P ROB. Type A House, No. 4155 E. This is a three-story house raised on stilts on the front façade and with a double height patio seen from the access level in the back. The third level has the social area, which overlooks a space of double height, half inside and the other half outside (loggia), over the large windows looking out to the sea. The two lower levels are for rooms (one for the parents overlooking the ocean, one for the children and one for the maid, which is by the patio on the second level). Guests have two rooms and services on level 1. Built area: 204 m2 for 7 people.

Drawing by Samper and Salmona. © FLC18675 B

fig. 17. Le Corbusier: L CM P ROB. Type D House, No. 4155 H. The entrance to this house is through the cover of the back volume, which sits on the ground but is separated from it by the first patio, where the children’s room is located. Between the back and front volumes, a patio with half the width of the plot and the kitchen are used to contain the front volume, which is raised on stilts. The social area is located on the entrance level, while the parents’ room and double-height volume are located on level 1. In this case, the width of this volume is half the length of the façade. Built area: 100 m2 for 5 people.

Drawing by Samper and Salmona. © FLC18672 B.

fig. 15. Le Corbusier: L CM P ROB. Type B House No. 4155 F. This type of patio spans the entire back front of the house, which is reached coming down from one of the terraces in the terrain and entering the house on the intermediate level, where social areas are located. In this case the double height volume is enjoyed from the parents’ room in level 3, while the children’s rooms again face the inner patio. Level 1 is designed for guests. Built area: 245 m2 for 6 people.

Drawing by Samper and Salmona. © FLC18674 B

fig. 18. Le Corbusier: L CM P ROB. Type F House, No. 4155 I. The entrance patio is L-shaped. The terrain has the same height as the cover level which, as in all cases, consists of vaults, but which here emphasizes movement, since the stair that serves as entrance to the house reaches the cover, although there is also a staircase entrance to the patio. The house has two stories, with the social area upstairs and bedrooms below. The entrance stairway from the cover crosses the void of the double height space that forms an L shape with the loggia. Built area: 141 m2 for 5 people.

Drawing by Samper and Salmona. © FLC18670 B

fig. 16. Le Corbusier: L CM P ROB. Type C House, No. 4155 G. In this house the patio sits in the middle of volume located in the back, where the entrance to the house is also located, together with an unidentified space which has a view of the garden covering the previous volume, with a direct view of the sea. There are two levels, in both back and front volumes. The garden sits on the floor the house barely touches on tangentially, since it is raised on stilts, and as in all house types, is occupied by a tree. In this case it is also crossed by a bridge that acts as an entrance to the social area located on level 2, which is characterized by having a double-height L-shaped space facing the loggia and the parents’ room located on level 1. Built area: 144 m2 for 6 people.

Drawing by Samper and Salmona. © FLC18673 A

fig.19. Le Corbusier: L CM P ROB. Type F House, No. 4155 J. Once again this is a three-story house in which the patio is located in the back of the plot, taking up half its width. The patio is located at the entrance to the house, one level below the ground, and is thus enveloped by a double-height volume.

There are two possibilities for assembly of this type, forming double patios by pairing with type B houses or left single, using only the same type D. Level 2 of the house is the social area, where the double height consists of 3 modules 2.26 m long by 2.00 m wide, producing the widest loggia of all house types. The third level has the parents and children’s bedrooms and the first level has the guest bedrooms. Built area: 192 m2 for 6 people.

Drawing by Samper and Salmona. © FLC 18674 B

In August of 1949 Le Corbusier, Sert, Wienner, and Herbert Ritter (director of the OPRB) met in Cap Martin, to advance the draft plan. In Paris were three Colombian architects working at Le Corbusier’s Atelier, Germán Samper, Rogelio Salmona, and Reinaldo Valencia. They awaited these drafts to have them tidied up and presentable. The work created in the Atelier is discussed in Bogotá during Le Corbusier’s third trip in early 1950. In September of the same year, as the contract had stipulated, he officially submitted the project. The technical report had 48 typed pages, in which the proposal is explained in detail and drawn in four stages of intervention. It was divided into four levels of intervention: regional, metropolitan, urban, and sectors (civic center and residential sector), which were modeled according to the four activities determined as guidelines to modern urban life: living, work, recreation of body and spirit, and circulation (traffic and walking). These activities were determined subsequent to the 1949 CIAM in Bergamo and in the Athens Charter. The proposal covers 48 legal sized plans, 17 of which are large format, and a model of the Civic Center. All material was presented in accordance to CIAM Grid format.

During his last visit, Le Corbusier arrived as adviser to Weinner and Sert, for the elaboration of the Regulatory Plan. New contributions were drawn for the project, including a new version of the Civic Center following the MARS Grid format, which was the one used during the CIAM 8 Congress, where the central theme was historical centers and was titled “The Heart of the City”.

The implementation of the plan faded due to lack of response from city authorities, the rejection of the proposal in certain groups and, according to Le Corbusier himself in the first edition of “Complete Works 1957-1965”, failed because of landowners rushing to commence building upon hearing of the plan. “Bogotá will continue to writhe in its mediocre destiny,” was his verdict back then. In later editions of the book, which are the ones now in circulation, this comment has been removed since he redesigned the pages.

However, he learned many things from Bogotá, and put them to use in his next urban project that was actually completed, Chandigarh.

Before moving on to Chandigarh, I want to highlight a fairly unknown aspect of the Bogotá project. In his last trip to the city, Le Corbusier arrived as an adviser of Weinner and Sert for the implementation of the Regulatory Plan.

He brought with him plenty of work to discuss with his partners, amongst which there was a proposal for a housing sector very different to the one presented in the Technical Report. In 1950, the sector was shown through the plan BOG 4221, but in 1951 the plan has a different number, BOG 4300. Let us take a look at it.

The plans BOG 4221 Unité de Quartier, signed in Paris on June 19th of 1950, represent the sector between the current Avenida Jimenez and the current 1 de Mayo, and also the current Carrera Caracas and Treinta. A sector of approximately 2km in size from East to West and 2.3km from North to South; meaning that it is double the size of what had been planned in the theoretical model24. In the first one (fig. 20 and 21), Le Corbusier differentiates existing 24 In the architectural drawings BOG 4222, Neighborhood Unit – Theory, the sector has 1 km. in width and 2 km. in height. See in: Le Corbusier in Bogotá 1947-1951. Elaboración del Plan Regulador de Bogotá. Establecimiento del Plan Director por Le Corbusier en París, 1949-1950 (facsimile edition), Universidad de los Andes, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá 2010, architectural drawings 131-1 to 131-4.

housing with the color yellow and new housing in green. This method lets us know immediately that he is referring to two types of housing, which are later explained in his report25. The style “Houses Sert Style” includes three-stories houses with two-bedroom apartments, living/dining room area, kitchen, and bathroom. The building is located with its longest façades facing east and west. The style “one house, one tree” maintains the arrangement of the preexistent reticle and consists of a proposal for single-family homes arranged next to each other, forming a row. From two homes of 116m2 (6 to 7 occupants) and 93m2 (5 to 6 occupants), three-stories high, with a patio on the first level, the common areas located on the second, and the bedrooms and bathrooms on the third. The width of both houses, taken from the Modulor, is 3.66 and 2.96m.26 The second plan (fig. 22 and 23) shows the activities that complement the housing units: large green zones and parks, where the school is located, pedestrian trails, sports fields, and highlighted in orange is the center of the neighborhood with trade areas, movie theatres, squares, markets, etc. The placement of this area was designed so that it would take no longer than 15 minutes to any home. In the third plan (fig. 24 and 25)27 we see the sector’s roads: the V3 (in red) is the road that delimits the neighborhood, where traffic is present and where public bus stops are placed every 400m at the intersections of the V4s (in orange), which is the road that leads into the neighborhood. These roads lead to the V5 (in light orange) which are the feeding roads leading directly to homes; V5s are equipped with parking zones. In yellow we see all the pedestrian walkways that, further on, in Chandigarh, were named V7.

What happened with the sector that Le Corbusier proposed in Bogotá back in 1951? How is it different?28 It is plan BOG 4300. Habitation, signed in 1951 by Valencia, Samper, and Salmona (fig. 25). It borders to the North of the current Carrera 53 and to the South of the current Carrera 24, in the East with the current Carrera 21, and in the West with Carrera 30. The general area is of 1.8km by 0.665km.

The plan is not composed with the four functions in mind, but as its title indicates it is a plan of a housing sector. Housing is divided into five different types even though H1 is not in this sector but in plan BOG 4302. Type H2 does not have a detailed plan, but it seems to be a variant of “one house, one tree” on longer terrain where posterior garden areas and, possibly, built upon areas are larger. The three-stories houses, built one next to the other, form an urban landscape where small streets are interlaced with squares. Type H3 has a detailed plan: BOG 4301 (see the illustrations p. 100). It shows redent (geared) five-stories high with lateral circulation and duplex apartments (5m in the front and 15m deep). Service and parking areas were placed with open 25 To the left, the “Sert type Houses”, identified on the report as BOG 4235. On the right side are the “one house, one tree” type houses, identified as BOG 4236. Lb., drawings 134-1 to 134-11 and 133-1 to 133-11, respectively.

26 This type was used by Le Corbusier since 1932 when he proposed, in the company of GATCPAC the Plan Maciá for Barcelona. See: Le Corbusier, “Barcelone. Lotissement destiné a la main d’oeuvre auxiliare”, in: Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret, OEuvre complete 1929-1934, Girsberger, Zürich 1934, pp. 197-201.

27 There should have been four architectural drawings to explain the sector, but there are only three. Four plans to correspond to four functions: living, work, cultivation body and soul, and circulation. It seemed as if drawing 132-2 that should have emphasized the “neighborhood centers”, in relation to “work” was included in drawing 132-3.

28 In effect, Le Corbusier brings two sectors to the city: the one we present here and the drawing BOG 4302, also a proposal for undeveloped areas between carreras Caracas and the 30th and between calles 67 and 68. Due to the scope of this article it is not possible to describe them all, but a detailed study of all the drawings that Le Corbusier brought with him to Bogotá in 1951 would reveal, without a doubt, important facts about the manner in which the initial theoretical model begins to be modified.

fig. 20 Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1950: Draft diagram of the sector of existing and proposed housing units delivered in the Technical Report concerning the different house types to be used as habitation models: On the left “Type Barcelona,” that is, ‘one house, one tree,’ and on the right the temporary housing project. Drawing by Samper with handwritten annotations by Le Corbusier. © FLC H3-4-374

fig. 21. Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1950: Neighborhood unit applied to Bogotá.

Free terrain use. Drawing 132- I from Informe Técnico: Habitar. © FLC and G. Samper.

fig. 22 Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1950: Draft diagram of the sector that shows two functions, work (commerce) and body and spirit care (parks, education and sports).

Drawing by Samper with handwritten annotations by Le Corbusier. © FLC H3-4-373

fig. 23. L e Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1950: Neighborhood unit applied to Bogotá.

Daily activities. Drawing 132- 3 from Informe Técnico. © FLC and G. Samper.

fig. 24. Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1950: Draft diagram of the sector that shows the circulation proposal. Drawing by Samper with handwritten notes by Le Corbusier. © FLC H3-4-371

fig. 25. Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1950: Neighborhood unit applied to Bogotá.

Insertion of a definitive road network. Drawing 132- from Informe Técnico. © FLC and G. Samper.

24

concept pillars. Public areas are differentiated between a) open spaces directly connecting with roads, and b) to indicate parks. The entryways to the buildings and the stairs are strictly located in the corners to create different entryways to the first floor.

accompanied by a proposal on roads and circulation (fig. 30), where different roads from the V1 (Carrera 30), V2 (Calle 24, which meets with the current Calle 32), and the V3s (Calle 45 and 53), form a corridor in which the vehicle dominates, as opposed to the V4 (Carrera 26) where the neighborhood’s commerce is located and of which is used by inhabitants to arrive to the V5s, where different types of parking spaces are available according to housing style.

From this network of vehicle distribution, an entire network of green zones is established and within it pedestrian routes are allocated to homes and facilities.

Type H4 corresponds to Unités d’Habitation; 17 stories high multi-family buildings with central circulation every three floors and different layouts of duplex apartments. Similar to the project that Le Corbusier was finishing during this same time in Marseille29. There are 6 Unités, accompanied by cylinders of same height that, according to Samper, were also housing complexes, that also appeared in the projects of Marseille south and in the “Citadelle.” In Bogotá the cylindrical buildings are only two, accompanying the 3 Unités on the north side of the sector.30 The presence of these buildings in a sector that mainly consists of medium and lower height housing serves, in purely numerical terms, to drastically improve the amount of open space versus built upon area; H3 type is more efficient in terms of density. A report that came with the different types, details the area and density of each type (fig.. 29 and 30): H2:

35% Constructed

24%

Private Garden

25%

Roads and parking zones

13%

Public Garden

Density: 334 inhabitants per hectare

H3:

25% Constructed

48%

Public Garden

29%

Access ways and parking

03%

Roads and circulation

Density: 440 inhabitants per hectare

H4:

08% Constructed

08%

Circulation

84%

Green zones

Density: 400 inhabitants per hectare

Urbanization of Marseille South, 1951 Similar in its conception are two other projects Samper worked in at the Atelier. These are Marseille South, 1950-195132 (fig. 34), and the housing study “The Citadelle” in Hem (Roubaix) France, 1952-1953.

The project of Marseille South arrives to the Atelier via Eugene ClaudisPetit, Minister of Reconstruction and Urban Planning (he had also won the commission for the construction of the Unité d’Habitation of Marseille 19471952), not to mention loyal friend of Le Corbusier’s. Wogenscky received the commission; he was in charge of the construction of the building on the boulevard Michelet. The project is presented in three different scales at the Œuvre Complète, the drawings were elaborated upon by Rogelio Salmona. At a scale of 1:10,000 MS-M 4282, the division of the territory is presented in accordance with the Sector Theory and the 7Vs. At intermediate scale, MS-M 4283 is a closer look at the sector to be developed. At a scale of 1:2500, MS-M 4286, the “Theoretical Sector” is where it is possible to understand exactly what Le Corbusier is proposing for each sector; the coexistence of three different types within a pre-existing site. This is even clearer in the plan that Samper draws over an aerial photograph of the sector corresponding with the Unité d’Habitation almost fully built, MS-M 4285. To the left, the finished building, to the right, three new complexes each one able to accommodate 1600 inhabitants.

On both sides of the boulevard we see two cylindrical towers identical to the one utilized in Bogotá. Le Corbusier said: On voit apparaître en plus une unité d’un nouveau type : une tour cylindrique destinée à la population nomade – les célibataires, les coupes n’ayant pas encore d’enfants. Ces deux tours cylindriques sont favorables a l’esthétique générale paysagiste. Elles sont une réponse à l’appel des formes.

The report does not include the numbers for type H5. It entails two winding areas that stretch along Calle 45, formed of vacant lots to be developed for isolated individual housing. Zooming into the plan it is possible to see houses without specific order or serialization. Lots vary in size due to the natural curve of the terrain, with an average width of 16m to 19m 31. Three rows of houses in the north zone of Carrera 45 finalize to shape the project, which we have redrawn with the colors of the CIAM Grid. With these colors we identified that aside from housing (fig.27) a series of facilities for commerce (fig. 28), education, sports, and culture (fig. 29) were proposed. These are

Also, Tout proche, on voit les maisons familiales d’un étage, touchées les V6.

Séparation totale de l’auto et des jeux.33 Complexes, cylindrical towers, and detached houses in rows, placed on a different angle to the housing units, on a terrain where roads are organized in accordance to the 7V theory, similar to the project for Bogotá with an average density of 230 inhabitants per hectare.

29 About the different proposals for the Unités for Bogotá see Juan Carlos Aguilera and Marta Sequeira articles on Precisiones en torno al Plan Director, op. cit. 188 to 215.

30 This drawing was turned into a maquette for the exhibit of “Le Corbusier in Bogotá, 1947-1951. The Plan”, which took place in the museum of the Casa de Moneda del Banco de la Republica, from April 21 to June 29 of 2010.

For this version, in the place where “H4” is written we decided to put another Unité, 7 all together, a number, no doubt, closer to the liking of Le Corbusier.

31 It would be interesting to study the similarity of the curve drawn by Le Corbusier on the south side of calle 45, with the “Parkway” drawn by the urban planner Karl Brunner, who left the city in 1948.

32 About the project see: Le Corbusier, “Urbanisation de Marseille Sud, 1951”, in: OEuvre Complete 19461952, op. cit. pp. 99-101 (the architectural drawings that appear here, according to the Livre Noir, were all made by Samper). Fernando Marzá and Elena Tinacci, “Urbanisme 1950: Marseile Sud, France”, in: Le Corbusier Plans, Volume 10, Echelle-1 and Fondation Le Corbusier Paris 2005.

33 Le Corbusier, “Urbanization de Marseille Sud, 1951”, ib., p. 99

25

fig. 26. Le Corbusier: Master Plan for Bogotå, 1951: BOG 4300 Habitation Š FLC 597

27. Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1951: BOG 4300 Habitation.

Dwell function reinterpretation. © FLC – GI-PCA Uniandes.

28. Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1951: BOG 4300 Habitation.

Work function reinterpretation. © FLC – GI-PCA Uniandes.

29. Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1951: BOG 4300 Habitation.

Body and Spirit Care function reinterpretation. © FLC – GI-PCA Uniandes.

30. Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1951: BOG 4300 Habitation.

Circulate function reinterpretation. © FLC – GI-PCA Uniandes.

In fact, Marza and Tinacci were surprised to find detached housing in the Marseille area and considered that the lower houses were planned by Le Corbusier to mediate the transition towards the proposed city, a tall city versus the preexisting lower-height city. Le Corbusier concludes:

coincide. The V4, which enters from the north side of the undeveloped plot, passes the commerce and cultural activities center, reaching the south side. The V5, crossing east to west, allows access to low height housing centers, while the access to the Unité d’Habitation is on the V3 from the west. Sport fields are mostly located on the eastern side. Two parking buildings are located on the north and south sides.

Ce plan de “Marseille-sud” reporté sur une grande photographie prise d’avion montre comment l’urbanisme moderne respecte les ressources naturelles d’un territoire, offrant, vu de haut, un ensemble souple et vivant. Les arbres existants demeurent ; il est facile d’en tirer parti, d’en constituer un paysage urbain. La même photographie d’avion montre comment, dans les territoires contigus, selon l’usage en honneur à Marseille, les petit cabanons, les petits pavillons s’emparent des surfaces disponibles, les stérilisant, et conduisent à une faible densité incapable a satisfaire aux besoins des sociétés modernes et qui accablent par le gaspillage les finances communautés.34

Rochelle-style houses, according to the drawings, are peculiar. The entry to each group of houses is through a narrow road, partially covered, creating a rhythm between covered spaces and patios with trees. Covered spaces coincide with the entryways into the houses. Pedestrian roads force the entirety of each house to focus on the posterior gardens of each unit; principal spaces are developed to face that direction. The houses are developed with two-stories: social spaces downstairs, bedrooms and a sort of attic upstairs, which in Bogotá is formed under the gently slopped roof. Samper had to draw a new version with a flat roof and a garden where the width of each house changes (fig.. 32 and 33).

The Marseille project, despite being commissioned by the Ministry, also succumbs to bureaucratic problems, power struggles with local architects, and lack of budget. Nevertheless, it is odd, as noted by Carles Martí, that one of the main exemplifications of how Le Corbusier was an excellent architect but a terrible urban planner is through the comparison of these two scales of intervention:

One-story houses are studied in detail, with almost 100 sketches of possible variations. The end result is four houses of different styles, for four different types of families. They all have a front yard, delimited by a curved wall on one side, which leads the occupants directly to the doorway and differentiates a more public space, the doorway, from a more private one, the garden. The service areas face the street, while the social zone and the bedroom face the back garden, private to each home. The first sketch is of a single bedroom house for a couple, of 33.19m2 built upon 142.34m2 of undeveloped terrain (fig. 34). In the second sketch, the two-bedroom house has a built area of 50m2 on undeveloped terrain of 153.96m2 for a couple with two children (fig. 35). In the third, the built area is of 81.65m2 on undeveloped terrain of 188.15m2 for a three-bedroom house (fig. 36). Finally, the fourth one is a house on undeveloped terrain of 222.6m2 with a built area of 96.6m2 with four bedrooms (fig. 37). The plot size and bedroom quantity change, but the service areas (social, kitchen, and bathrooms) are almost unmodified. As it is not modified, the selections of houses have a flat roof towards the front yard and an inclined roof towards the backyard, which allows the window to illuminate and air the service area, also creating the level difference. The roof appears to be protected by a layer of dirt, which would transform them (in true Le Corbusier fashion) into a garden seeded by birds.

Each house has two trees (fig. 38).

This operation (Marseille South) is still condemned by many as a serious error in scale, which luckily never took place. Its realization would inevitably have caused, as they say, the annihilation of the preexistent urban form. When arguments such as this, purely quantitative, are used to discriminate the quality of the project, we face a logical leap that is hard to bridge. The Unité of the boulevard Michelet was conceived exactly with the same principles and rules of the Marseille Sud complex. So, why are both projects judged so differently? Why is the Unité seen as the bearer of great virtues and potential, while the extension of its criteria to a larger area, as that of the Marseille Sud complex, threatens to cause an urban disaster?35 The housing study “The Citadelle” in Hem (Roubaix) France, 19521953 was the last Le Corbusier project that Samper contributed to.36 According to Marza and Tinacci37, the project arrived via an invitation of Alber Proboust, president of the Comité interprofessionnel du longement social (CIL), to visit 14 hectares on Hem, close to the XIX century industrial town of Roubaix. The aim was to build a total of 819 housing units, of which, according to a written request that arrived to the Atelier on November 27th of 1952, 70 percent needed to be detached housing. This is why, in the project’s proposal, there is only one Unité d’Habitation 17 stories high with 294 units, while 326 housing units were planned to be developed as one-story houses and 330 as two-story houses; resembling the “Rochelle” style, also used in Bogotá.38

According to the correspondence, in spite of the friendship between Le Corbusier and Provoust, the commission did not take place, principally because there was already a disagreement amongst members of the CIL Board of Directors in regards to having Le Corbusier as the hired architect.

Nevertheless, working on this project, regardless of not being built, must have been an enriching experience for Samper. Again, there were variations of one housing principle, in order to create urban projects in which Le Corbusier’s interest seemed to be in the creation of enough types, as he did in the Unité d’Habitation with its 23 types of apartments.

The proposal that Le Corbusier sent to the CIL is drawing H.RO 4738 (fig.35) in which the semi-triangular shape of the terrain can be seen, which has a road structured in the shape of a cross, where the axes do not strictly 34 Ibid.

35 Carles Marti Aris, “Bogotá, vista aérea”, in AA.VV., Le Corbusier in Bogotá, 1947-1951. Volume 11, op. cit., pp. 16-17.

36 From the information that appears in the Livre Noir, it appears that Samper was in charge of the project, with the partial help of a new collaborator, Sachi.

37 Fernando Marza and Elena Tinacci, “Etude d’habitation “la citadelle”, 1952, Hem (Roubaix), France”, in: Le Corbusier Plans, Volume 12, Echelle-1 and Foundation Le Corbusier, Paris 2005.

38 To follow the manner in which Le Corbusier developed the type of houses “Rochelle”, see the projects Maisons Loucheur of 1929 and the Unités d’habitation transitoires of 1944, in the volumes 1 to 4 of the Oeuvre Complete.

None of these projects were built. It will never be possible to know, if in Le Corbusier’s mind he wanted to actually construct all the housing units, in their many variants, different in height, densities, and manner of terrain occupation, in Bogotá, Marseille South, or Hem. If we pay attention to the time that it took the construction of Unité d’Habitation of Marseille (five years), it is evident that he would not be able to do so. Le Corbusier proposed the mix of typologies to 28

be developed by different architects, creating very different surroundings to what Modernity has accustomed us to around the globe; a repetition of the same style of building or house, giving an unremarkable and desolate sensation to spaces, spaces that were highly criticized during this period in architecture.

Possibly, from the very criticism, came Samper’s gradual parting from the principles of his French mentor upon his return to Colombia. But surely, deep inside, he never forgot these exercises. The ‘what’, the method of conceiving these projects, the initial intentions, will always be present in the works of Samper. But the radical change is the idea of the city that accompanies and envelops his architecture: the ‘how’.

Chandigarh I cannot conclude this article without briefly mentioning Chandigarh.

In fact, of the 13 projects in which Samper took part in at the Atelier on the rue de Sèvres, eight of them are in the Punjab capital. None of them however, as this article has focused on, are related to housing, but instead, to the general planning of the city where the sector is the fundamental piece.

fig. 31. Le Corbusier, La Citadelle housing study in Hem (Roubaix), France, 1952-1953 (H. Ro 4738): General plan, second sketch. Drawing by Samper. © FLC 20817.

The project for Chandigarh was started by Albert Mayer and Matthew Nowicki, it was then rethought by Le Corbusier and, finally, drawn and built

by Pierre Jeanneret, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. Nowicki died in an aerial accident in 1950. This tragedy forces engineers, architects, and advisers to the first minister of the time, Nehru, to fund another team to take over the planning of the new capital of the Punjab. Nehru insisted in finding a team capable of designing modern architecture with experience in similar contexts and difficulties. This is why, in 1950, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry (an English architectural couple) are contacted due to experience they had in western Africa. She was close to Le Corbusier, and he to the Team 10. Drew and Fry accepted the design of the residential areas and recommended for Le Corbusier to be the author of the master plan and the Capitol. And so it was.

After many encounters and definition of the terms on the contract for planning and design of Chadigarh, Le Corbusier embarked on his first journey to India on February 18th, 1951. Five months had passed since the initial contact regarding the commission, to which, after hearing the proposal, he replied directly “Your capital can be built here; we, in the number 35 of rue de Sèvres, are able to ensure the solution on this problem.” Le Corbusier, Jeanneret, Fry and Drew signed the contract.

fig. 32. Le Corbusier, Master Plan for Bogotá, 1950: Rochelle type house.

BOG 4244 - 131-1111. © FLC – G. Samper.

Le Corbusier appears as “government adviser with different missions: urban planning, city plans, neighborhood distribution, style of buildings, nature of homes and nature of palaces.” Le Corbusier tells that “with the exception of Jane Drew, who arrived three months later, everyone met in February of 1951 at the base of the Himalaya Mountains, on the broad plateau chosen to house the capital, located between two rivers (dry during 10 months of the year); and there, without delay, began the work that would develop with extraordinary rapidity.39 The General Plan has two parts: 1.) The urban plan of the city in which Le Corbusier sums up and complements different theories that he has developed throughout his life, mainly that of the theory of 7V and the Sector theory. The version that Samper drew is the first stage of construction of the city thought for an average of 150,000 inhabitants (fig. 41). 2.) The drawing of the

fig. 33. Le Corbusier, La Citadellle housing study in Hem (Roubaix), France, 1952-1953 (H. Ro 4771): Comparative plan of housing types. Left side of the plan, two-stories Rochelle type house, in two different lot versions. Upper left hand side, one-level row house type. Lower left hand side, apartments Unité type. Drawing by Samper. © FLC 20837.

39 Le Corbusier, “Chandigarh. La naissance de la nouvelle capitale du Punjab (Inde) 1950s”, Œuvre Complète 1946-1952, op. cit., p. 116.

29

fig. 34

fig. 35

fig. 36

fig. 37

fig. 34. Le Corbusier: housing study for “La Citadelle” in Hem (Roubaix), France, 1952-1953 (H. Ro 4755): A single story type F2 house.

Drawing by Samper. © FLC 20823. fig. 35. Le Corbusier: housing study for “La Citadelle” in Hem (Roubaix), France, 1952-1953 1952-1953 (H. Ro 4756): A single story type F3 house.

Drawing by Samper. © FLC 20824. fig. 36. Le Corbusier: housing study for “La Citadelle” in Hem (Roubaix), France, 1952-1953 (H. Ro 4757): A single story type F4 house.

Drawing by Samper. © FLC 20825. fig. 37. Le Corbusier: housing study for “La Citadelle” in Hem (Roubaix), France, 1952-1953 (H. Ro 4758): A single story type F5 house.

Drawing by Samper. © FLC 20834. fig. 38. Le Corbusier: (H. Ro 4758): type F3 , F4, F5 section.

Drawing by Samper. © FLC 20835.0 fig. 38

Capitol, with its great buildings and esplanade. Samper had another Colombian architect, Alvaro Peña,40 under his supervision who worked for a short period of time in the Atelier, and together they make one of the most refined and detailed versions of the Capitol, after a year of huge change and transformation to the proposal (fig. 40).41 I want to centre your attention on the General Plan. After his first trip to India, Le Corbusier travelled for the fifth and last time to Bogotá. In an interview conducted by Luis Vera, Le Corbusier says: I believe that there is in fact a “unit” in Latin American cities:The Spanish block. An excellent human unit for lower in height constructions, until the arrival of mechanic speed. The automobile needs a staggered crossing and the grouping of several Spanish blocks, which may constitute the appropriate mechanical circulatory unit. Consequently, I sustain that the block must subsist under the new urban dispositions.

As the dome and spire, the musical measure, the Spanish block is a concept essentially different to the human destiny.”

I have recently observed, during my trip to Punjab, that cities dating back to the beginning of time have a grid that remarkably resembles the Spanish block. In the Master Plan for Chandigarh I have distributed the neighborhood unities – horizontal blocks of rooms for a total of 750 people – on grids approximating 120m sideways. This grouping style, which I have called “village”, allows the solving of problems for a very poor and similar population. In an urbanistic and architectonic way, the essential conditions of life have also been improved: the “inside” and the “outside”; the sun and shade during summer, the sun and its penetration during winter, etc.

This elemental unit, the “village”, does not have more than one internal element: the sector replaces the neighborhood and the neighborhood unit. It can contain between 10,000 and 20,000 people and allows for the organization of common services: on the one end, markets, neighborhood cores, artisanal work areas, and on the other, green zones, daycare, kindergarten, schools, youth clubs, sports, etc.

In Chandigarh, I surrounded the sector with a wall four meters high, open in its angles by four doors that connect it with the adjacent sectors and bus stations every 400m. My effort has consisted in interpreting, in a new way, the problem that the automobile represents; I insist that buses on decongested roads must transport people instead of having cars congesting the roads. With the theory of the 7V, which constitutes a new circulation law, I believe to have finally solved urban transit.42 Samper also took part in shaping the sector. Not only in the general drawings of the city, but also in the arborization plans of the city; essential when defining street profiles, which are not only defined by the width and height of the city but also by its vegetation.43 In fact, it is difficult to find a road in Chandigarh which has a profile shaped by buildings. The highest buildings 40 Architect graduated from Universidad de los Andes who had a kitchen company. According to one of his former employees, he always remembered the time spent in Le Corbusier’s office as the best moment of his existence.

41 A very interesting text by Samper in which he narrates, as the person in charge of the Secretariat, different moments in the relationship with Le Corbusier and the development of the project. See: “Le Corbusier de cerca” op., cit., pp.62 to 64.

42 Luis Vera, “Le Corbusier, Una lección de Urbanismo”, in: Revista Pórtico, no. doble 11-12. Especial sobre el Plan Piloto de Bogotá, Medellín, 1952, pp. 4 to 5.

43 About the arborisation process of Chandigarh, see: Le Corbusier et son Atelier de la rue de Sèvres 35, OEuvre complete 1952-57, Girsberger, Zürich 1957, pp. 110-113 and, Rémi Papillault, “Arborisation, 1951, Chandigarh, India”, in: Le Corbusier Plans, Volume 10, op. cit.

fig. 39. Le Corbusier: Chandigarh, Punjab: CHAND LC 4604, Transit routes study.

Drawing by Samper. © FLC 5201.

of the city are on the V2 (which crosses the city vertically) and they are arranged in a herringbone shape, perpendicular to the road. They do not decorate. Le Corbusier solves the entry into these buildings by means of interior roads, which are accessed through the V3. In fact, his idea (and how it was actually built) was to practically lose sight of the buildings in between the luscious treetops of regional trees. In Chandigarh it is evident that the street corridor does not exist, because if there was something that Le Corbusier argued and criticized it was the expiry of many city elements that had entered in crisis with the advent of industrialization, and that needed to be radically transformed when envisioning the modern city, beginning with the street. Chandigarh is a strange city, it is the not-city; it is an inhabited garden. Inhabited by proud and happy citizens wanting to be there and no where else in the world. Le Corbusier did not project, in Chandigarh, the city spectacle that we are accustomed to visiting, replete with aesthetics worthy of touristic compositions. Chandigarh is difficult to photograph; streets have no architecture, they have trees. In other words, trees and not architecture define the spacing of the streets.

When entering the housing sectors, not designed by Le Corbusier, but his partners Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, and Pierre Jeanneret, what you find is that each partner developed a series of types; 47 in total, for different types of occupants, casts, and economic resources. From single-family houses for the highest of government officials to houses for laborers, as well as all recreational, health, educational, and commerce buildings that were needed according to the General Plan.44 The end result is a texture and mixture of models that was definitely born in the plans for Bogotá, South Marseille, and Hem. Chandigarh is the only place in the world where this theory was put into practice. If we look at Chandigarh calmly and attentively, and with the seriousness of problems faced by contemporary cities, then we are able to offer solutions that arise from objectivity and not from mere pleasure. From conscious awareness, statistics and numbers, but above all, from an idea of a city where, as in the case of Le Corbusier, life prevails and not the speculations of business (fig. 41).

44 About the subject see: Kiran Joshi, Documenting Chandigarh. The Indian Architecture of Pierre Jeanneret, Edwin Maxwell Fry and Jane Beverly Drew, Mapin Publishing Pvt and Chandigarh College of Architecture, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh 1999.

Le Corbusier – Samper.

The last drawing that Samper signs in the Atelier of Le Corbusier was on July 16th of 1953. It was a drawing of the Secretariat. The 4787. Surely, in the days to follow, in the style of the old continent and before returning to Bogotá, he went on summer vacation with his family. Packing what they had after a five-year stay was not an easy task for Yolanda, his wife and mother of his five children. Plenty of notebooks with Germán’s sketches and annotations, many mementos that Le Corbusier himself gave to his collaborator, from paintings of his purist years, to oil paintings, watercolors and gauches, thus amassing a significant collection of tokens of his mentor. This collection includes the dummy of the Ville Radieuse book, which was given to Samper for his help in organizing his personal library in his famous apartment on the 7th floor of Nungesser-et-Coli, Port Molitor. These gifts show the level of affection the Maestro had for his collaborator. We do not know if all collaborators received the same treatment, but undoubtedly the relation between Le Corbusier and Samper was a special one.

Suffice it to recall that Le Corbusier accompanied Yolanda when visiting Bogotá, in her marriage by proxy with Germán, who at that time was in Paris. During the early sixties, when Le Corbusier’s wife and mother had already passed away, Yolanda visited the old Maestro in his apartment and he spoke to her of his loneliness.

Germán and Yolanda also packed intangible things in their move. The love for architecture and uncompromised work ethic, dedication and enthusiasm, the love of learning and drawing, the interest in the solving of problems in the zeitgeist of that time. Inquiry, asking one’s self, doubt. Samper tells that Le Corbusier used to tell him “you have to carry the seed, not the flower”.

It is possible to say that Samper’s first work, with his own group of partners on Esguerra, Saenz, Urdaneta and Samper, has marked inheritance of what he learned in the Atelier, above all, in regards to the use of concrete. But the other inheritance, the intangible, the one that makes a person who they are, is even more important. Of which, maybe the most beautiful one is that Samper, like Le Corbusier, is generous, remarkably so; his hands are open to receive and to give.

Working with Samper on the facsimile edition of the technical report, in the interview we did with Ricardo Daza, Samper accepts that he himself forgot many of the housing projects he drew in Paris. Samper drastically separates himself from Le Corbusier in the way of thinking the city, from the point of view of that garden city, with large buildings, in the manner of the Unités d’Habitation. But it is clear that this was not the only thing he learned in the Atelier of the rue de Sèvres. It is true that this means of conceiving the city that is extracted from Samper’s drawings in Paris shows another side, a side that is more calm and balanced than the Le Corbusian city. When Samper embarks on the first collective-housing project in Bogotá, La Fragua, he probably did not consciously remember the work he did with the Maestro, but in his hand and in his subconscious will always be the memory of the work he did there; the seed, present in every project he embarks on throughout his impressive career, a career in which makes Samper, himself, a Maestro.

fig. 40. Le Corbusier: Chandigarh, Punjab: CHAND LC 4471, Capitol complex.

Drawing by Peña. © FLC 5155

fig. 41. Le Corbusier: General urban proposal for Chandigarh, Punjab, India, showing the 8 “hearts” of the city.

Drawing by Samper. © FLC 29060

Abbott Laboratories of Colombia Esguerra, Saenz and Samper Bogota, Colombia, 1961 Client: Abbott Laboratories of Colombia S.A. Scope of work: Planning and construction Area: 161.458 sq.ft.

Abbot Laboratories of Colombia Inc. is a pharmaceutical company with its headquarters situated close to El Dorado Avenue. This main avenue links the airport to the downtown core of the capital.

The complex has four freestanding buildings, arranged on green and natural surroundings, linked with each other by paths that maintain a direct correlation to the landscape. With a plan that allows for a harmony between the structure and the natural surroundings, the complex demonstrates that the integration of industry and natural beauty can be achieved. The project’s intent was to provide a pleasant environment for employees working within, and is also visually pleasing for those who transit the avenue.

General aerial view

To better serve the different activities that take place within the company, four independently functional structures were built. The Manufacturing block houses the production of raw material and the storage of completed products. The Administrative block houses offices. Mechanical equipment and the site of general maintenance are located within the Machinery block. The Employee Service block is home to the cafeteria, a nursery, lockers, bathrooms, and also medical and dental services.

All four buildings within the complex are two stories high (the Manufacturing block, however, employs its two stories as unrestricted interior space, making its ceiling double in height). Unity within the complex is achieved not only from its horizontally emphasized nature, but also through the use of materials and exterior appearance. Expanded tiles over exposed concrete are harmoniously combined with white painted stucco to make up the coating of the walls. The result gives a visual depth and variations in shadows to which are added the plastic workings of drainage canals, doorways, and adjoining points of vertical and horizontal planes. The buildings were erected over concrete plinths from fear of flooding in the area. By elevating it in this way the structure rests on the same plane as the El Dorado Avenue, giving the complex an effect of weightless elevation over the terrain, like that of a sculpture on a podium.

All interior spaces possess high technological standards that meet the demands of the pharmaceutical industry. Supply services such as water, electricity, gas, compressed air and special ventilation were carefully coordinated within the project to meet the high requirements of the laboratories and equipment inside. Technical installations were left exposed with the intent of allowing changes to be made in the facilitation of permanent control and adequate maintenance. Moreover, the pharmaceutical company wanted to show the public, and in particular visiting doctors, the sterile working environment without needing to enter actual working spaces. With that concept in mind, an external corridor was built in the perimeter of the production building with large windows installed to allow observation of work in progress.

The complex was declared an Architectural Heritage site in 2001. It has since changed its use and has been restored by the architect Rodolfo Ulloa. Its picturesque and architectonic character have been maintained.

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Transversal section

Corridor section

Facade section

Corridor

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First Epoch

hen approaching an architect’s early works, it is necessary to go deep into his studies, travels, and years apprenting with more experienced and mature architects. For Germán Samper it was his years in Le Corbusier’s Atelier on the Rue de Sèvres in Paris from 1948 to 1954 that overshadow his formal studies at Bogotá’s Universidad Nacional. As the subject of this article mainly is Samper’s first works, I believe it is just as important to study the context of Bogotá during the 1950s -how the context of the profession in the early years of his own architectural practice shaped his designs and thinking. The Parisian experience provides a starting point, leading on to his return to his homeland, where he has spent virtually all his professional career.

Eduardo Samper

Far away from his country, family, and friends, my father began his life as an architect in France, surrounded by a multinational group of fellow apprentices to Le Corbusier having differing languages, nationalities and customs.

Design projects from all over the world materialized in front of him on the drawing tables at the Rue de Sèvres Atelier, and this milieu was definitive in his formation as a professional. He was part of the Atelier during the design for the city of Chandigarh in Punjab, India, the Pilot Plan for Bogotá, the Jaoul Houses in France. For these and many other designs, Samper actively participated or acted as spectator.

The trip to Paris, thanks to a grant, was Germán Samper’s first trip out of the country. His wife Yolanda, my mother, arrived two years later (after getting married by proxy whilst in Paris) where they had their first child, me. It can be assumed that they had a very clear intention to return to Colombia and the prospect of staying in Europe for five years was not in their plans. Nevertheless, five years working with Le Corbusier, on the streets of Paris and the highways of France, Italy, Greece, Spain, and England, or attending the lectures of Pierre Francastel and the CIAM congresses, were without a doubt a privileged learning experience for the young architect.

BCH (Central Mortgage Bank) houses in Cúcuta, 1954

How much of this European experience returned with him in his luggage, from the ship that brought him back to Colombia, is what I intend to investigate. Part of Le Corbusier’s influence translates into the composition of shapes and the use of materials, the very tools that allow one to envision design work, and once applied, are not forgotten. The origin of his conceptual structure is not obvious, bearing in mind that Germán Samper approaches each design commission in an organized, methodical, and analytic manner.

From this unchangeable and systematic method his architectural design work becomes increasingly clear. In this sense it must have been a great lesson to see first hand how the Maestro drew, wrote, and realized his designs in both concepts and shapes, realized in words and drawings.1

1 Regarding this Samper mentions in his book “La Arquitectura y la Ciudad”: “The sketches of the Maestro were his work habit. They always were the culmination of a dialogue with the architecture he witnessed. The beauty of drawing was not enough for him, he used them as proof of the discovery of reality, and thus creating a Corbusian universe that became a handy legacy for when he needed to create. He quickly understood how unnecessary drawing is if not used to record an idea, he also learned that in our profession thinking comes before designing.”

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Bogotá and Modernity

Vargas Rubiano, and design from Jorge Arango. Bruno Violi became a true friend to this group of students and with his work served as an example of the importance of attention to detail in architectural design.

Colombia is a country of western heritage, where not only is the language of Spanish origin, but so is the architecture, particularly that of Andalucía, carrying along with it memories of its Islamic past. During Colombia’s colonial epoch the major cities of Western Europe (Paris and London in particular), became beacons of reference for the country’s republican intellectuals and politicians, sharing a parallel tendency in architecture and urban development. The Second World War changed the focus of attention towards modernism, versions of which were being taught in the United States, often

by European immigrants.2 Most Colombian architects possessing the financial capacity to study abroad choose North American universities to further their undergrad or graduate studies. In Latin America, Brazilian architecture, with its curves and exotic landscapes, conferred a touch of sensuality upon the stern and cold nature of modern architecture born in the Northern Hemisphere.

These qualities were major contributors to the “tropicalization” of modern architecture in Colombia, which in turn returned to shape such northern works as the late buildings of Le Corbusier.

Towards the end of the 1940s, the Bogotazo of 19483 was especially remembered: a popular revolt that ended in a horrible fire that affected much of the Historical Center of Bogotá and left holes in the urban fabric, precipitating proposals for the renovation of the city. Coincidentally, just one year after this conflagration, Le Corbusier visited Bogotá in order to begin the design of the Pilot Plan. Moving from an architecture detached from historical canons, to a new programmatic model and the new dogma of the Modern Movement, provided a blank canvas that allowed for architects to produce architecture with their own individual design sense but immersed in a transformation towards universal character. During these years Colombian architecture was much consolidated, being a multifaceted school, not unified under a single pattern or leadership, and not exempt from the debate that took place internationally between functional and organic approaches to architecture. Seen with the perspective that only comes with time, this era produced an important legacy for the history of Colombian architecture.

Colombia’s first Faculty of Architecture was created at the Universidad Nacional in 1936, the year in which the construction of the campus began and whose building was one of the first to be built. The early graduates, and Germán Samper and his cohort soon after formed a true ‘generation’ of Colombia-trained architects, with members from all over the country. Colombian professors educated abroad, or trained as engineers (the profession that hosted the academic teaching of architecture), in addition to European architects who moved to Colombia, shared in shaping new generations of architects. The tendency to teach architecture via styles, with emphasis on decorative effects, began to disappear in the face of ideas from the Bauhaus, other modes of the European avant-garde, plus the resounding message from Le Corbusier to “abandon the Academy”.

Germán Samper, First Period Having just arrived from Europe in December of 1953, thanks to the help from his friend Francisco Pizano, Germán Samper undertook his first independent commission; which was only developed as a proposal. This project was the neighborhood plan for Muzú.4 An article written by Samper for the magazine Proa 78 reveals the genesis of this project. It began with a few “impressions”, as he calls them, of spaces and concepts the architect had in mind when starting this project. Apart from mentioning the importance of studying, pencil in hand, urban spaces such as Saint Marcus Square in Venice and the Piazza de Campo in Siena, he refers to the architectural qualities of colonial Colombian cities Cartagena and Popayán, and their capacity of having created “coherent urban neighborhoods” due to their spaces for gatherings and internal patios. These features also ensure the individual privacy of residents. These design features are relevant for Samper in regards to Muzú “where the houses are separated from each other by 100 meters, and their treeless surface produces a desert-like sensation and a dissolvent environment” and he laments the lack of togetherness of the buildings in these urban outlines, which are derived from “expanding cities that produce diluted agglomerations; anti-urban.” It becomes clear, in Samper’s comments, that his first design concept for Colombia departs from the spatial urban organization typical of the CIAM architects. What worried him was the scale of the modern city, the “unspeakable” void between buildings, but he does not disengage himself from the ideas of the “old Maestro” whom he continues to admire.

During his academic architectural studies, Samper witnessed the transition of teachings based on European “Beaux Arts” traditions towards an already universal Modern Architecture. He received, for example, drawing classes where examples of classical architecture were reproduced. Nevertheless, his professors were outstanding, their careers marking a high tide for architectural excellence in Colombia. Austrian Karl Brunner taught traditional European urbanism and was an active participant in the designing of Bogotá, where he applied urban notions that respected the already established city, clearly in opposition to the functional city of the Modern Movement.

German-born Leopoldo Rother was Samper’s professor of Theory of Modern Architecture and in his classes he introduced students to fundamental concepts from Bauhaus and the European avant-garde. With his works he showed a modern architecture, that was simple and elemental, completely adapted to the tropics. Samper also received classes on construction from Hernando

3 The assassination of Jorge Eliezer Gaitán, popular leader, divided Colombian history in half: before and after the Bogotazo.

4 La Unidad Vecinal de Muzú was part of a group of important urban and architectonic projects by the ICT, Instituto de Crédito Territorial, in 1949 under the direction of architect Jorge Gaitán Cortes. This neighborhood, in the urban perimeter, was destined for working families and guided by the CIAM city precepts. There were blocks formed by 8 houses in a row, in the way of buildings surrounded by green areas and interconnected by pedestrian roads.

2 North American architecture was fed from a vital and fertile source, mainly the school of Chicago led by Henry Sullivan and the tremendous works of Frank Lloyd Wright. It grew significantly due to the active presence (both in the academia and in practice) of important European architects such as: Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Richard Neutra, Eliel and his son Eero Saarinen, José Luis Sert, and Eric Mendelsohn to name a few of the most known. This convergence turned North American universities into a meeting place of western tendencies in architecture.

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Muzu neighborhood. ICT (Land Credit Institute) Proa #30. December 1949

Samper proposed a Civic Centre with buildings that form two closed off squares, constructed from two-story volumes, appealing to the modern vocabulary of horizontal cornices, rotund masses with marked doorways, and introducing galleries, porches and spaces that are designed for collective use. It can be perceived, both in his drawings and his descriptive notes (in regards to materials), that his first approach to architecture was developed during those years: sharp forms, exposed concrete emphasizing a horizontal structure, brick walls closing off areas, “utilizing glass in a moderate way and always with depth, protecting the windows from the rain and sun”.5 In 1954 Germán Samper started three years of working for the Building Department of the Central Mortgage Bank (BCH), founded only a year earlier.

This design department was created with the aim of promoting and developing the construction of affordable housing, fundamentally directed towards the middle class. Architect Carlos Arbelaéz Camacho was its first director, and colleagues and contemporaries Samuel Vieco Sánchez and Eduardo Pombo Leyva, joined Samper in developing housing schemes in cities all over Colombia.

Their work consisted in designing urban projects and choosing suitable already developed sites, then direct, manage, and monitor the final architectural developments of individual units, to be designed by local architects.

These small and medium format urbanizations, (from 50 to 200 houses), were inserted into existing cities using traditional subdivision patterns, but with increased housing density. The exceptional quality of these projects was due to the selection of architects and to the definition of clear and precise affordable housing guidelines, based on the principles of economy and standardization, themes that relate to the Modern Movement. In the history of modern architecture in Colombia, the BCH occupies a privileged place.

Some of these architectural projects were designed within the BCH Department, when the Bank could not find suitable professional support in some cities. Samper designed four of them, of which are urbanizations of row houses located in Manizales, Cúcuta, Bucaramanga, and Cali. Today these urbanizations 5

Muzú neighborhood. General view.

Proa #78, January 1954.

Samper’s text in Proa # 78 from January of 1954

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are almost unrecognizable due to the brutal urban transformation of Colombian cities; there is very little original information available. During the Fifth National Congress of Architects, which took place in Bucaramanga in 1955, architects visited the complex of Bucaramanga. They say, as it can be read in the Colombian architectural journal Proa, that it is “a good example of semitropical architecture with excellent spatial organization utilizing the region’s traditional house forms, forming the city’s best urban contribution”.6 The Urbanización Cabecera del Llano consisted of 1story single-family houses and 15 stories apartment buildings. Its placement in the city differentiated from the traditionally open front lawn to practically enclosed structures at street level. Modern architecture is present in its eaves marking access, its cubist massing volumes, and its asymmetrical composition of façade openings. The first proposal for the urbanization Hacienda del Tunal design, for the institution Zoraida Cadavid de Sierra, took place at the end of 1954. In this project Samper had another opportunity similar to that of Muzú’s urban center. In this case the design commission is unusual, since it entails the urbanization of farmhouses on individual terrains of 1,000 m2, where agricultural activities would take place (urban agriculture long before its present-day popularity!). The urban proposal constituted subdivision of the terrain into rectangular lots, with houses of 100 m2 on stilts, freeing the main floor for agricultural storage and equipment.

Low-density is contrasted with the urban concentration of the Centro Cívico. When designing this, he returns to the experience of Centro Muzú, with communal buildings, each one with a unique architectural identity, that form a rectangular public space comparable to the scale of traditional Colombian plazas. Ramps, arcades, and porches, conform the proposed urban space.

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Taken from Proa # 94 from November of 1955

a, b, c: BCH houses, Bucaramaga d, e, f, g, h: BCH houses, Cúcuta h

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El Tunal Civic Centre

The Zoraida Cadavid School was designed one year later as the first stage of the Tunal, but never built. This boarding school for 300 girls (to be run by nuns) signified his first detailed design proposal for an institutional building.

The architect created three different areas or sub-complexes. The chapel was placed bordering a plaza that served as an access and gathering place; the atrium of the chapel was used to form a compositional axis. Also around the plaza were the dining area and workshops. (The idea of a chapel with a lateral patio, private, and adjacent to administrative areas, a colonial tradition, would be touched upon again in the chapel of the Polo Club). A second complex is a one-story high homogenous block conformed only by classrooms, each one with an individual patio acting as an extension to the outdoors. The third group is the dormitories, which follows the CIAM method, in terms of group structures that do not obstruct views and are well oriented for optimal sun exposure. Green areas between the buildings are framed and defined by stone walls. The plan is very interesting for showing how three different grouping typologies can create a coherent complex, even if it is built from parts, as practiced by the modern movements.

Gonzalo Rueda House

Zoraida Cadavid de Sierra School

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The house that the architect designed for his own family in Santa Ana, is similar to this last house in its exterior design, where a sculpture-like intention prevails. The main difference between both houses is that in his own residence the concrete structure manifests itself in both the gabled roof (with its largest side parallel to the slope) and in the notorious eaves and the columns supporting the first floor. His home, located at the top of a hill, has a pronounced cantilever that gives it a strong presence without intentions of blending into the landscape. Samper’s effort to reduce circulation areas in order to create sub-rooms and varied functions within a small area is noticeable. He did not propose overly-ample spaces; instead he wanted to create intimate rooms with a strong relationship to the exterior. In the next stages of the house, even when doubling in size, Germán kept the original intention of a simple house with intimate spaces.

Gonzalo Rueda House

The second stage, in 1962, was a two level extension on the eastern side, having a flat wood roof and with Japanese style eaves. The structure did not compete with the main house. The principal staircase was moved to the new volume, thus freeing space in the original area. The central salon remains as the center of the house and its ambience and spatiality are not affected.

Between 1955 and 1956 Germán Samper designed and built two houses in the Santana neighborhood in Bogotá. At this time Santana was an urban suburb at the city’s outskirts beginning to be populated. These two houses were the Rueda house (unfortunately demolished) and his house.

The first one was a small house to be inhabited by its owner, Santiago Rueda, and which could be considered as the first work where the architect was able to control even the smallest detail.

It consisted of an interesting composition of shapes, with a volume slightly elevated from the ground by a rustic concrete plinth. Despite being small, with a shape that followed the landscape and the inclination of the terrain, it had a sculpture-like presence. With this house Samper initiated his personal architectural expression, unquestionably based in the Modern design language, but grounded in his local memories. The colonial tradition of white houses, surrounded by walls, kind and with intimate interiors, was perhaps lingering in his memory, not in their typology, but in their rusticity.

Samper explains, in the Proa publication about this house, ”My preoccupation in this case was to design a structure that had the look of a Colombian house.” The language that Samper was looking for in his architecture was expressed in the strength of the volume’s constituent parts; building structure, window patterns, and textures of materials. Volumes where mass prevails and where the sizes and depths of the windows are controlled to achieve the desired light qualities on the inside and a volumetric and aesthetic intention on the outside. In a design intention opposite to the transparency created by the massive use of glass (which diminishes privacy to interior spaces), this house’s use of glass is intimate and rich in contrasts.

Germán Samper House, 1954

With the addition of the attic, low-height spaces were created, which emphasized the double-height of the main salon. Twenty years later, during the 80s, Samper made a subdivision of the house that fits with the original house and with the already grown forest. Two new structures were made within the trees.

The sensation of going up the long path of the exterior staircase is no longer of a garden, but of a small citadel under the shade of a forest. See page 234.

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The Cartagena Soccer Stadium (1956) was a large-scale design competition where the jury decided to combine schemes by competing architects: one formed by Obregón Valenzuela, which designed the master plan, and the scheme proposed by Ricaurte Carrizosa and Prieto in partnership with Germán Samper and Eduardo Pombo, from which the stadium architecture was obtained. For the Cartagena complex, the only section actually built was the soccer stadium. The project was realized in Samper’s office (acting as director), and his team had invaluable contribution from engineers Guillermo González Zuleta and Carlos Hernández. Of note in this project is the use of concrete, especially the way it formed pleats on the façade. This pleated membrane, in the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid, replaces the supporting columns, expresses the roof’s supporting structural system and the ring seating, all separating the stadium’s interior from the exterior. One section, resembling the shape of an open mouth, allows sheltering seating from the sun and rain because of the gentle curvature on its base where one can comfortably appreciate the entire stadium. It is a work of engineering where architecture plays a leading role, a good example of the importance of the proper union of the two disciplines.

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Proa # 103

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The Church of San Luis Beltrán or Polo Club, as it is better known, is located in the neighborhood of the same name, which was promoted by the BCH in 1957. This urbanization, one of the most interesting urban endeavors of the Bank, is nowadays considered Heritage and is partially preserved; it is the product of many stages and many architects. The urban design was assigned to the Bank’s design team with Eduardo Pombo as its leader. Ricaurte Carrizosa and Prieto developed the design of the two-story houses; Robledo, Drews, and Castro for the three-stories houses; Salmona and Bermúdez were in charge of the apartments complex; and Germán Samper did the Civic Centre.

The chapel is a component of the civic centre that was not completed in its entirety. It is the third complex which Samper designed and the only one to be partially taken to completion. The complex contains a church (the only building conforming to the architect’s original ideas), two commercial buildings, of which only one was built, having an exterior ramp (now demolished), a covered coliseum, and a school. Unfortunately, only the chapel was built in its entirety and the urban area envisioned was never formed. The architecture of the chapel and its rectory are continuations of sculptural architectonic concrete forms and

white walls that Samper developed in the aforementioned houses. In this case, Samper went further with the expressive use of concrete. This includes ceiling and column structures that define the interior ambiance, the detailed and carefully crafted concrete formworks for the columns (made out of wood for the main porticos and in metal for the roof beams), and such fixed furnishing details as the pulpit and the baptismal font. The church, sober in its spatiality, is rich in detail as in the wooden furniture and the stained glass with Christian symbolism that can be appreciated when exposed to the light7. Its exterior silhouette, with a gabled roof (the cover is actually more complex as it inverts, forming a paraboloid), and its white walls, give the church an air of calm and appears traditional. In the details, modernity stands out. The apparent symmetry is tempered by asymmetrical accents, and the rustic look of the white walls is combined with concrete. This is a modern church, but it has a timeless quality, precisely by reference to chapels of estates or small towns. It is a happy encounter between Colombia’s colonial tradition and modern architecture.

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Stain glasswork designed by Marcela Samper de Ángel, Germán’s sister.

Eastern façade

Northern façade a

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Second floor

The presence of concrete is crucial to the modern nature of the chapel, the pronounced eaves at the entrance and sides, the plinth subtly separating the wall from the floor, in cornices and in details such as the exterior pulpit, and of course, the bell tower. c

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Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper From 1958 Germán Samper becomes a partner, to be in charge of design, to the already established firm in design and construction: Esguerra Sáenz Urdaneta Suarez. It was a fundamental step in his career since he would develop numerous projects of various kinds and create synergy especially with the architect Rafael Esguerra García, who was in charge of the construction aspect of the firm. This synergy would be reflected in works of great structural innovation and quality of construction.

Samper’s next designs still carry the sculptural label of the works previously realized, but slowly over time they evolved into what could be seen as the second stage in his conception of design. In later works, sculptural shapes start to shed anecdotes in order to focus on a volumetric and structural synthesis, a more unified sense of design.

The Sena building of 1958 is an important step towards utilizing concrete in its maximum expression. This building, designated for teaching, is located on a small site and height was used as a design solution to achieve the desired effect. The block has a north-south orientation; the intense sunlight coming from the south is diffused by a concrete grid, and from the south with terraces. The image of the building is of an imposing mass, with pronounced accents of light and shade due to the management of modelling in its façade.

However, the element most memorable in the building is the access columns, due to their geometrical and expressive shape. They open up space for a small bus terminal. In the Sena building, the palette of materials is reduced to concrete and highly detailed design in wood and brick, serving as counterpoint for the lower blocks of the secondary road.

The Sena building has a clear urban and sculpture-like presence in the city, with a tower positioned according to the canons of modernity, poised on a platform on the north side to improve relations with traditional constructions. The building privileges circulation and meeting spaces: the first floor is open to the city; from the outside, a ramp provides direct access to the student terrace, which is directly related to the third-floor cafeteria; the inner stairs, designed with elevator stops interspersed with service areas, invite rather short section use, and the cover is accessible to appreciate the view of the mountains.

Deans’s meeting room

floor type

Terrace level

first level

Casa de Observación de Menores, western façade

Casa de Observación de Menores, perspective

The Casa de Observación de Menores (a juvenile correctional centre) in 1958, with the participation of architect Billy Drews, is also a building that represents ideas of expressive and textured volumes. In this case, three volumes were designed corresponding to the three internal activities of the institute: medical and psychological attention, residence, and community services.

Due to the lack of space, some of the recreational activities took place on the roof, in open patios that cannot be seen from their surroundings. The volume made of brick, with few openings, was appropriate for its function and was enriched by its exterior structure. This idea would be later taken up again on the Pan American Life building in 1967.8

The children’s ward of the Hospital San Rafael (towards 1959) happened during the second expansion of the hospital, the hospital had a first expansion lead by Cuellar Serrano Gomez in 1945. During this second expansion the idea was to create an autonomous unit linked to the principal hospital building by two concrete tunnel-bridges. The building is designed as a closed volume to the hospital, since it is located towards the service and loading area. It faces a nearby hill, which allows for a calm view from the pavilion. The monolithic block, in concrete and brick, with an exterior ramp illuminated by small fissures in the concrete wall, is finished with an open terrace to connect with the landscape and serves as a recreational area for the children. It is not the first or last time that Samper finished a building with an open terrace.9 In this case it forms a patio-like area, an open space, in the way of “toit terrase” of the Villa Savoye of Le Corbusier.

8 In both cases these two buildings were recently structurally reinforced, stripping both volumes of transparency. No one understands the need of filling in the spaces that do not meet with the plate during reinforcements.

Abbott Laboratories in 1961, one of the most emblematic works of Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper, is a project that could have ended up being a less ambitious one-block building of solely industrial character. On the contrary, the firm decided to design a project that had two aspects: first, the industrial machinery set in a lengthy double-height volume, perfectly suited for laboratories, with all its installations exposed as a fundamental aesthetic component (carefully coordinated by Esguerra); and second, the administrative area with its grouping of low-height buildings arranged within gardens facing the avenue, completing the conception of a pleasant complex in which to work. The type of architecture that Samper used for the previously mentioned civic centers was also employed for the laboratory complex. They are white volumes where the horizontal prevails, with the concrete structure exposed at the plinth of the top beam, elements that further emphasize the horizontal. The use of concrete for pergolas, stairs, and eaves, is combined with small perforations and volumetric “accidents” on the white volume. It is architecture rich in detail, but based on sober volumetric concepts. Following this same stylistic design device of horizontal volumes are the engineering laboratories of Universidad Nacional, but there are enclosed in brick.

9 Open terraces were the solution for open spaces on the roofs of Casa de Observación de Menores and in the Abbott Laboratories, where they played an important role in the design of the structures. Likewise, at Gold Museum (1963), this idea was used in order to keep the purist façade of a closed box with offices around open gardens, not visible from the outside. Years later in 1977, in the administrative building of Zona Franca in Fontibón, a second level was designed that contains office areas surrounded by open patios.

San Carlos Hospital

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An architecture of rotund and sculptural volumes that are also functional in their organizational plans would be constantly present in the works of Germán Samper during his time within Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper. His intention was enriched by examining construction, notably the possibilities presented by pre-fabrication, post-tensioning and other structural and constructive advances allowing for the design of ever more daring structures, where standardization played a very important role. In this regard, the contribution of his partner Rafael Esguerra, who directed the majority of the projects designed by the firm, and the structural calculations of the engineer Doménico Parma, did not impede Samper’s design sense of an architecture based on simple and elemental principles (with rotund volumes and characters), but at the same time synthesizing, through shape and functionality, the building’s purpose. To illustrate this I will only make reference to a few examples: The Gold Museum (1963), designed as a white marble cube with only one horizontal window facing Parque Santander; the museum was a “large case that cannot outshine the treasures inside”.10 Also, the extension of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango (1962), to which they added an auditorium and a gallery. Samper designed a structure that complements the existing one, designed by Rafael Esguerra in 1957. In this extension the independent access and the horizontal window on the lobby of the auditorium located on the second floor, appear as horizontal openings, saving the surprise of the building for inside. Another chest, this one made in wood, was exclusively designed for chamber music. The El Tiempo newspaper offices on Bogotá’s Avenida el Dorado, designed in association with the Chilean architect Christian de Groote, expresses its function clearly through its volumetrics (an important Modernist ideal). It stands out; the great-enclosed volume contains a rotary printing press, the heart of a newspaper plant. He organized the premises of the office around a large void that allows the visual integration of all journalists and editors as they carry out their daily tasks.

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Germán Samper, catalogue for an exhibition, 1993 El Tiempo building

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Carimagua neigborhood. Section and façade

countries12. For Samper, La Fragua’s conception of social housing became a productive obsession, leading to ongoing theoretical and practical research producing evident results in future projects. As I mentioned before, thanks to his particular way of undertaking projects in a systematic, analytical, and organized manner, and always with perseverance, he was soon published in books and magazines, participated in urban planning processes, and designed numerous projects that further matured his concepts regarding “The Humanized City”, in his description.

Germán Samper and Housing Returning to the early years, these were, for Germán Samper a very active time in which he took part in many fields. Apart from his core activities as designer, he joined the academy (first as professor, then as Dean for the Universidad de Los Andes), and became the director of the Colombian Society of Architects, where a key legacy was to start architecture biennials. He also served in politics for three periods as City Councilor for Bogotá, and simultaneously he began to become involved with the transcendent theme of his entire career: social housing.

In 1964 the urbanization of Carimagua was initiated, where Samper was able to apply the theories that he had begun to clarify in his La Fragua project. The notion of shaping social spaces is enriched by placing small plazas surrounded by small groups of houses. Two-story houses are adopted with a shed roof in order to allow for extensions on one side. The social area is on the first floor and the bedrooms on the second, accepting in advance that its transformation by the owners would be an unavoidable process. Germán uses the wall colors of the façades to confer liveliness and variety to the complex, and to inspire a taste for aesthetic concerns amongst homeowners. The lessons learned from observing traditional architecture, plus this experience with real communities, began to produce positive results in further architectural projects. In this, anthropology and architecture are complemented in the work of Germán Samper.

1958 marked the beginning of an experience that changed Samper’s attitude towards the city and architecture. In collaboration with his wife, Yolanda Martínez, and from wanting to help the family’s chauffeur who desired his own residence, a process that involved CINVA (Inter-American Centre for housing and Planning), the ICT (a Low-income Credit Institute), and Colsubsidio.11 This collaboration resulted in Colombia’s first experiment in mutual-help, also known as self-building or co-operative housing.

After organizing a group with legal representatives from financial companies, a process that linked architectural design to communities and supporting institutions. In actuality, architecture formed the roadmap that allowed 52 families (parents, children, and extended relatives included) to build their own housing. This produced strengths and weaknesses from which many lessons were learned for future social housing experiments. Selfbuilding or co-operative housing was soon officially included as one ongoing program for the ICT.

The urbanization of the Sidauto neighborhood in Quirigua in 1967 was the next community project, only this time it was for bus-drivers. In this complex the architect and urban planner wanted to find a solution for parking lots, in which two internal patios, sheltered by the backyards of houses are proposed.

With this he again frees up the interior portion of the complex from domination by motor vehicles. This is a very low-cost solution in terms of land and construction, and has security and identity benefits. In this project and for the first time, Samper applies the square lot idea,13 where but half of the lot is occupied during its first stage, a layout notion that could result in four different spatial situations

In regards to design, in La Fragua Samper defined two new fundamental and basic rules. The first one was to increase density with single-family houses. To achieve this, vehicular roads are reduced to the periphery, thus recovering the inner urban areas for pedestrians, designing the neighborhood as a single residential community. The second rule was to design a small house with room for extensions and to conceive of them as live-work spaces; this idea leads to the design of two separate structures with separate entrances. La Fragua was a successful experiment, especially in its social dimensions; it started a new route for housing production in developing

12 Numerous studies on the subject throughout the world, agreed to enact the auto-construction as the most realistic and viable method to meet the overflowing demand for affordable housing. House for People by John Turner is an example of the research that helped to formalize the governmental and international loans to this type of developments.

Alongside, architects from different latitudes developed the urban concept to be defined later as “Low-height Housing of High Density, versus the CIAM idea that offered High-height Housing of High Density”; this type of housing had its theoretical and practical culmination in 1969 with the PREVI-LIMA project.

13 In Previ, Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda en Lima (Experimental Housing Project in Lima), Samper also employs the square lot that gave him good results in Sidauto. He also suggested this model in 1970 for urbanization for higher income families, la Alhambra, this time with the possibility of designing the structures and their façades permanently as it was not progressive growth housing.

11 In 1959, CINVA was a research agency with headquarters in Bogotá that depended on the Organization of American States, OAS, with René Ehyeralde as director, and in regards to housing issues the ICT was the official agency in Colombia with Fabio Robledo as manager. The CINVA provided technical collaboration, the ICT awarded two blocks, and the Colsubsidio (a Family Subsidy Fund) provided credit to the 52 families that were grouped for this first experiment of Mutual Help.

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Back to the beginning of this article, to Samper’s mentor Le Corbusier, who dreamt of cities from theorizing about housing (les Maisons Domino, les Immueble Villas, les Unités d’Habitation). The study of collective housing units is the origin of the Vertical City, which clearly opposes the City Garden, the single unit suburbs. It leads to a utopia that in some cases was partially applied and architectonically neglected, leading to incompatibility with traditional structure and aesthetics of cities. Cities had started to be influenced by American culture, which dominated the urban forms built all over the world, especially through Latin America, and of course Colombia. Coming out of the concept of individualism and enterprise, cities designed for motor vehicles extended to an unanticipated extent.

Samper, as many architects of his generation,14 warned that the CIAM had evaded the study of the traditional city and the importance of its continuitá (or continuity), as the architect Aldo Rossi and his Italian contemporaries call it.

They also pointed to the American model of suburbs, created to provide automobile access to each house, as the slow but sure predator of agricultural land near cities, creating chaos of over-mobility across territories. High density and concentration becomes imperative, but at a high price. Here is where Germán Samper’s housing designs are valuable, as stated in his words about the PREVI design, “when designing high density neighborhoods that required housing approximation, I understood that nowadays we are accustomed to a relation between volumes that is radically transformed and I found myself designing urban spaces; a diametrically opposite way of experiencing public space. I had discovered gunpowder. This is how the cities in the past were built; it changed, in an essential way, the object of my research. What is important is to create spaces for humans, something that no longer exists in modern cities”.15

Carimagua neighborhood

14 Similarly to Rogelio Salmona, although on very different paths, the two Colombian architects that worked with Le Corbusier the longest, deviated from the line drawn by their teacher. Salmona with a deep departure from rational and functional architecture, focusing his interest on organic architecture that rejects the city proposed in the CIAM congresses due to its disarticulation with the already existing surroundings. With his architecture he tries to blend or join with the landscape. Samper, without abandoning the aesthetics of pure and rational structure also questions the CIAM in order to further the creation spaces of urban dwellings; the return of the Street Corridor and Squares.

15 Taken from “Germán Samper, La Evolución de la Vivienda”, at the beginning of the chapter about The Humanization of the City.

on the same lot. Consequently, the Sidauto development has since retained its original layout and forms because the future needs of its owners was better anticipated through flexibility. Security elements such as metal bars on windows, and locks on urban spaces (as in all such communal low income complexes) were installed throughout. This project also confirmed something that was noted in previous projects, that the homes facing major roads became commerce spaces and grew in height.

The process of study and design of urban social housing that begun with BCH’s housing clusters and ended up in large-scale citadels such as Colsubsidio has a constant common denominator: the housing unit is the origin of the design from which urban neighborhoods are created. Germán Samper did become an urban planner, but his planning was achieved by means of architecture and through the study of its typologies and small urban block-forms. The urban neighborhoods created by Samper are not urban approaches that start from the general (the city) towards the particular (the housing unit), but rather they depart from the basic unit, single-family of multi-family, to generate “cohesive urban spaces”, as he describes them in his first published Colombian article.

Carimagua neigborhood

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Avianca Building Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper In company of Ricaurte, Carrizosa and Prieto Structural engineer: Doménico Parma Bogotá, Colombia, 1968 First place in competition Client: Avianca Airline Scope of work: Planning and construction Area: 400.955 sq.ft.

The building for Avianca airline was the first highrise built in Bogotá. It is located in front of Santander Park and is neighbored by three colonial churches as well as a repertoire of modern buildings.

In spite of its massive size, 37 stories and 4 basements, the freestanding structure is pragmatic, of pure geometry, and serene in appearance. One could say that its elegance is the result of a rational search structure, and an honesty in its construction.

Its mid and uppermost levels are used as offices and the lower levels are used as Avianca’s ticketing and mailing offices. The project was granted in a private competition in 1968 to the firms Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper and Ricaurte, Carrizosa and Prieto, who conceptualized and constructed the building between 1968 and 1970.

For the first time in the country’s history the North American standard of construction indices was employed, which allowed for the realization of a free-standing tower, without connecting systems to neighboring buildings. Previously, the European approach was used, where connecting buildings must be taken into consideration when designing and building new ones. The competition was open to both construction practices; all participants opted for connecting to neighboring structures, including Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper. However, the firm quickly leaned towards a freestanding tower and the compliance to the block of buildings was moved to the uppermost levels of the structure, giving it the graceful and slender aspect that characterizes the Avianca building.

The concrete structure is complemented with a floating façade of aluminum, glass, and porcelain enamel plates that give way to completely unobstructed interiors, making it very versatile. One column placed on each of the exterior corners and two central interior columns support the tower’s rectangular and subtly buckled outward shape.

Five anti-seismic plates, by way of a great chassis, allow for the rest of the plates to be conventional and light. One of the structural frames is exposed to the entrance hall, as a lovely welcoming gesture by the planner engineer, Domenico Parma.

In the design and execution of this building a new series of constructional innovations were introduced. The nucleus of vertical circulation, for example, was designed contrariwise from the norm. The elevators’ batteries on one side of the building face toward the exterior, as opposed to the interior, of a central vestibule so that they can envelope a shaft that circulates the mechanical installations and the stairs.

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By virtue of its rational and economic distribution of mechanistic networks and its advantageous functional order, the building was able to face the violent fire that occurred the 23rd of August 1973 without structural damage. The empty spaces separated by protecting walls, the stairs, and the elevator shafts formed a highly effective protective barrier against the fire, in conjunction with additional procedures such as the introduction of an overpressure by air injection which constituted safe elements of escape.

The design and procedures adopted in the construction of the four basement levels constituted another innovation that addressed Bogotá’s difficult terrain. Peripheral circular caissons were built to guarantee the ground’s stability and that of neighboring foundations. Inside of these caissons, structural columns were erected to then cast concrete rings as part of the basements’ plates, following the limits of the terrain. These plates were cast top-down, utilizing the terrain as a framework to then dig from under the slab. This procedure allowed, too, a mechanical balance between the volume of excavated soil and the weight of the tower’s structure that was being built.

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Even though the structure expressly plays a prevalent role, the project itself does not defend an extreme structuralism. Its façade alternates between the lightness of its windows and prefabricated brisesoleils, and that of the solidity of its columns that emerge from the visible concrete. There is no plating, and despite the lack of decorative intention, the materials express what the technique has demanded of them. The visible textures are rustic without being exaggerated. Their treatment is the product of exceptional taste and style in choosing to leave the concrete visible, joints and all. Order, equilibrium, clear conception, and an honest and expressive construction are prevalent in this building.

In the Avianca building, Germรกn Samper approaches design as a synthesis between the aesthetics of the volume and clarity in the structure. Having discarded platform-based volumes in the contest, the tower rises from the ground with frankness and elegance.

Santander Park Santander Park derives its name from the fact that the house General Francisco de Paula Santander, hero of independance, lived in was located on the north side of the park.

One decade after his death a statue was erected, and the old Herbs Plaza was named after him. Just like the Plaza de Bolívar, Santander Park has become one of the most significant locations for the inhabitants of the city.

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In circumstances not foreseeable and for different clients at different times, the firm Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper designed or intervened in a good number of buildings surrounding the park and the park itself. Around it, significant modern works such as the Banco de la República or Central Bank, Avianca, Banco Central Hipotecario, Gold Museum, Compañía Nacional de Seguros and Lido Theater coexist with older buildings such as the Church of San Francisco, Church of the Third Order, Church of Veracruz and the Jockey Club building. Both business and religious constructions, high rise and low rise, respectively. The works performed by Esguerra Sáenz and Samper are permanent witnesses to the intense public activity present in this park. Between them and at different intervals, the mountains can be seen to the east.

Several stair steps mark the border with Carrera Séptima and its agitated flow of vehicles and passersby. Once above, a smooth surface receives the statue of the general in its center. The texture of the floor, composed an of irregular cut pavement of predominantly clear colors is interrupted by a black line leading directly to the monument. The perimeter has large trees surrounded by benches, and on the east side, a large rectangular fountain designed by Álvaro Sáenz acts as a backdrop to the statue of the Independence movement leader. Then a series of steps leads to the last level, which precedes the entrance to the Gold Museum.

The plaza is surrounded by pedestrian walkways isolated from the plaza by trees, distinguished by the terracotta color of the pavement. A significant cluster of trees on the north side, and an organized sequence of trees on the east. To the presence of pigeons today is added the deterioration caused by an improvised market of white tents erected in this space certain times during the year. In spite of inevitable popular activities, Santander Park is an intense urban public space in which street musicians, tourists, executives, businessmen and shoe shiners, among many other citizens, converge, passing through as well as stopping by.

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Architects and Builders

his essay provides an analysis of the work of the architecture/ construction firm Esguerra, Sáenz, and Samper, through its principal partners. It is necessary to trace the foremost innovations of the firm in order to understand its exceptional buildings and urban proposals. We shall look at it in terms of architecture, technique, planning and organization, management of its design teams, new materials and systems, the source of design proposals and the implementation process for these designs. The intention of this text is to explore the firm’s organization, significant achievements, creation and learning.

Notes on the Teamwork of Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Hernando Vargas Caicedo

Fellow-student builders: From Esguerra Sáenz Urdaneta Suárez to Esguerra Sáenz Urdaneta Samper

Rafael Esguerra García (1922-2000) had, in his own words “a technical personality that faces risk with the ordered mentality of an engineer”.1 During his years in the Faculty of Architecture (where he graduated in 1945) he already founded a firm with engineering students Ignacio Umaña and Bernardo Pizano, which designed the Plazuela del Rosario. By then, Esguerra had worked as an assistant to Violi on the commencement of a line of faithful constructions that linked the Beaux-arts-inspired classical designs with the new demands of re-inforced concrete construction.

At this time Álvaro Sáenz, classmate of Esguerra in high school, had arrived from studying architecture at MIT and Cornell. Graduating in 1943, he had already started his own office with three classmates from the National University: Rafael Esguerra, Daniel Suárez Hoyos, and Rafael Urdaneta Holguín.2 Since the honoraria were not sufficient to pay four professional associates, it was necessary at the beginning that Urdaneta and Suárez also work in offices such as the Secretaría de Obras Públicas (Secretary of Public Works) to provide a supplement to their salaries. Álvaro Sáenz was the manager, Daniel Suárez supported him in administration matters, and Rafael Esguerra, after graduating as designer and builder, would progressively devote his time to the building process. Germán Samper, who would become a partner of the firm by the end of the following decade, had helped Rafael Esguerra on his architectural thesis, which was for the design of an Airport Terminal, one of his favorite subjects.

The first works of ESUS were topographical plans for Almacenes Ley and the construction of a house for Ana Uricoechea de Caballero. Structural calculations were done by Rafael Esguerra, who had studied the technical details of building with concrete. ESUS was part of the brand new School of Engineers and Architects, founded in June 1948 as a response to the social

Germán Samper, Rafael Esguerra and Álvaro Sáenz, partners of the firm Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Ltda.

1 Interview to Rafael Esguerra García in November 24, 1999, by Hernando Vargas Caicedo, Rodrigo Rubio, and Alicia Ortega, transcribed by Alicia Ortega. According to Germán Samper, Rafael Esguerra was in love with all activities that involved machines, such as airplanes, ships, and cars. Together with Julian Moreno were partners in flying light aircrafts and with Nino Parma and Rafael Obregón in sailing. See Interview with Germán Samper Gnecco by Hernando Vargas Caicedo, June 22, 2010.

2 For biographical information on Álvaro Sáenz Camacho, see Perry, Oliverio. Quien es quien en Venezuela, Panamá, Ecuador, Colombia. With compiled data up to June 30, 1952. Oliverio Perry & Cia Editores.

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unrest in Bogota. The point of creating it was to gain the interest of the growing group of veterans and new firms of architects, engineers, and city-builders.

In 1947, the engineer Doménico Parma (1920-1989) introduced himself to Rafael Urdaneta, director of the Departamento de Control (Control Department) of the Secretaría de Obras Públicas, to obtain a position technically reviewing projects. He showed outstanding results, to the point that in 1949 he became the head of the Structural Calculation department of Cuellar Serrano Gomez (until 1962). From the moment of their meeting, Parma and Esguerra found a common ground that would take endure for a long period of time.

In 1951, Jorge Arango and Carlos Martínez3 made their first inventory of outstanding Colombian firms and their design works. Several ESUS works were published; amongst these were 3 to 9 story buildings and two bungalows.

This early work merited publication in the Colombian architectural journal PROA, in particular the Teatro San Carlos (1950) which would later be considered, in the compilation of 1956, one of Bogota’s best buildings.4 Its interior atmosphere was remarkable, with conic lamps, wavy mural linings in painted plates of asbestos-cement, and a clean handling of the vaulted gallery’s access way that was composed of glass blocks.

Germán Samper and engineer Doménico Parma

Graduating in 1948 from the National University, Germán Samper had collaborated in the urban planning department of Bogota’s municipal government a year prior; and his name was included on the list of collaborators by the Sección de Edificios Nacionales (Public Works Department). From 1948 to 1953 he had worked in Paris with Le Corbusier on the Regulatory Plan for Bogota and on the plans for the city of Chandigarh in India where, in his own words, “Entire plans had been produced in a short period of time.” After his arrival in Colombia, the Central Mortgage Bank (BCH) hired Samper and a small group of architects to work on housing development from 1954 to 1957.

According to the Pilot Plan of Bogotá, with Le Corbusier’s hallmark of tall buildings engulfed in parkland, the construction of the innovative Urban Centre Antonio Narino (CUAN) was pushed to the forefront. Its design was in the hands of an interdisciplinary group5 that was under the supervision of the Dirección de Edificios Nacionales. Parma and Esguerra had utilized external heterodox columns fifteen years prior to the construction of the Panamerican Life building. The design and construction of the CUAN was a project on a scale without precedent. Its elevated apartment blocks required high levels of design, organization and supervision; and the elaboration of its design yielded valuable information about the use of concrete.6 At the time there was an anxious search about how to approach the actual construction. By then, Parma had invented, with Cusego, the popular reticular cell system (a bi-directional tie structure).

In his return to Bogotá from Paris, Samper went from contact with Utopia to a gradual adaptation to local realities. By then, Rafael Esguerra had developed into an exceptional builder. For Samper, working for the BCH was a unique opportunity to recognize the effective role of housing institutions and urban design in the Colombian context. By the beginning of the 1950s, Samper had personally experienced the growing tension within the Congress Internationale d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and identified the need for new approaches to cities. He arrived at urbanism through architecture.

At this time, the largest and most prominent building constructed by ESUS was the Hotel Continental, where Samper recalls Esguerra mentioning that his soil studies mainly consisted of dropping a metallic bar on the terrain and seeing whether or not it was “good or bad”. Another construction of significance, planned by ESUS and built by Ibáñez & Manner, was for the Geographical Institute Agustin Codazzi, which took place between 1956 and 1957.

Samper was the Dean of Architecture in Los Andes University from 1955 to 1958. Together with Eduardo Pombo and the firm Ricaurte, Carrizosa and Prieto, Samper ventured to compete to design the Villa Olímpica in Cartagena. The design would require the assimilation of Obregón and Valenzuela’s urban planning proposal, in order to develop an architectural and structural solution guided by Guillermo González Zuleta with the support of Carlos Hernández. Samper opened his own independent office and the BCH commissioned him for the project of the neighborhood of El Polo, which Esguerra Sáenz Urdaneta Suárez would later build. Samper remembers that Rafael Esguerra (ESUS) was overwhelmed with project designs and constructions, so they invited him to be an associate with ESUS in 1959. “They were really generous with me”, Samper remembers of his associates. No monetary contribution was required and Samper immediately began to work with them on the Carmel Club (1958), solving design issues.

3 Arango, Jorge and Martínez, Carlos, Arquitectura en Colombia, Ediciones PROA, 1951.

4 See Teatro San Carlos - Bogotá. Álvaro Sáenz, arquitecto. PROA # 60, June1952; Casa en Bogotá, Esguerra Sáenz Urdaneta Suárez, PROA # 68, February 1953; Las mejores edificaciones Bogotanas. PROA # 100, June 1956.

5 Villanueva, Paulina y Pintó, Maciá, Carlos Raúl Villanueva, Alfadil Ediciones, 2000. PROA # 61, May 1952.

By special decree Nº 1953 of 1951 the construction of the CUAN project was approved and the Ministry of Public Works formalized the contracting of the architects Néstor C. Gutiérrez B., Daniel Suárez, Rafael Esguerra, Enrique García, Alberto Herrera V., Juan Menéndez, Jaime del Corral y Álvaro Cárdenas, to initiate the job based on field research advanced by the architect Gutiérrez in Venezuela, México and several cities of the United States. Diario Oficial, January 29, 1953.

6 See: Gómez Pinzón, José. La construcción en los últimos cincuenta años, in Angulo, Eduardo Cincuenta años de arquitectura 1936-1986, Universidad Nacional, Escala, 1986.

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Samper contributed with his unique ability to work at all design scales.

This was an ability he acquired at Le Corbusier’s Rue de Sèvres office, where he was exposed to working with ATBAT (Atelier de Batiseur), an organization created for collaboration between architects and technicians. In fact, the prototype of Bureau d’Etudes, or Office of Technical Consultants for Building Practices, became an essential institution in promoting innovation and excellence in French architecture of that period.

With the SENA project, Samper recognized that all his experience with Le Corbusier could be put into practice. It was no longer about geometry or a purist approach, but about the idea of Brutalism,7 with an emphasis on the artistic qualities of sculptural architecture, extending beyond Le Corbusier’s earlier design postulates, the “Open Plan” being one of them. Samper had lived for a month in the model apartment of the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, was familiar with the Ronchamp church, and had worked on the design of the Secretariat building in Chandigargh, which were the epitome of this new attitude. He had written an article for Bogota’s El Tiempo newspaper where he referred to concrete as “the new material in architecture”. In a very congested area, buildings could be elevated on “legs of hens” to create an ample access on the lower level.

This was an act of architectural and structural audacity. In his sketchbooks, Samper collected sketches of the technical systems of the Unité d’Habitation; in this building an unorthodox structure is validated through the disposition of facilities within its transitional levels. The SENA (1958 and 1959) shows a combination of cast-in-place concrete over its north façade, with prefabricated parasols on the south side and a closed elevation on the west. This building was a combination of formal experimentation and the possibility of being the first major Colombian public building conceived and completed in all-concrete construction, with the skills of Esguerra, Samper, and Parma with his contractors.The design team was thus formed and innovating with its own original design ideas.

Works such as El Polo Civic Centre (1958), with the San Luis Beltran Church and its bell tower in exposed concrete, demonstrate the discipline 7 Edificio SENA, PROA # 149, September 1961. Brutalism had appeared as a term in 1956, as designation of several expressions that, as the Marseille’s Unity (1948-1954) tried to describe new tendencies and sensibilities, mostly based on exposed concrete (béton brut). Banham, Reyner. El brutalismo en arquitectura: Ética o Estética?. G.Gili, 1967.

Carmel Country Club, western façade

of the modulation of a paraboloid roof, the integration of modernist “white” architecture, and the use of carefully cast concrete that celebrates textures and direction. However, the work done on the Abbott Laboratories (1961), undoubtedly demonstrates the confidence of purpose that Samper and Esguerra had been acquiring in the ESUS’ projects. Several firms were called to present offers in a sort of bidding for the head office of the laboratories in Bogotá; Esguerra and Samper took the risk of a radically new approach in their proposal. What was expected was that bidders would minimize cast columns and to reduce costs. In order to surprise the Swiss official who was alarmed by the possibility of “a palace”, instead of keeping a sole building for all of the departments and production areas, the proposal was to separate the various functions; to raise the first level to protect it from flooding; to take taking advantage of the surroundings of the “industrial garden”; and to include the white surfaces with a touch of the character of local buildings, with traces of exposed concrete and castings. This unified industrial complex had all services distributed into independent pavilions, inter-connected by covered walkways and placed in an area planted with gardens and greenery.

For the Abbot Laboratories, in addition to the exploration of a more expressive architectural style, there was also technical insight. Esguerra stated, in the Abbott laboratories the firm began the application of basic principles for industrial installations… The installations ought to be visible, offer an easy maintenance process, and the flexibility to allow changes… The method of preparing design techniques, construction, and building procedures turned this type of project into a specialized technology that gives a notable character to the architectural space and to the design process.

Until Samper became an associate, the architectural style of Esguerra and Sáenz had been eclectic, a mixture of elements of the European and North American language of its time. Immediately, the projects of SENA and Abbott represented a highly experimental approach, both technically and formally.

New times and new buildings: Esguerra Sáenz Urdaneta Samper (ESUS) since 1964

Bogota’s local capacity to project and build had substantially expanded in the 1950s.8 Building was about organizations, experts, and industries that accumulated a more comprehensive and integrated supply of resources and knowledge. These were demonstrated in sustained “technical improvements”.9 By the end of the fifties there was a clear competition among major firms looking to take over older organizations that had opted for modernization. Among these firms was Obregón Valenzuela, well known for making houses and buildings; this firm was associated with Pizano, Pradilla and Caro in commissions of growing importance. As an example, when compared with local classics such as the Ecopetrol building, an example of frugality, the Bavaria towers demonstrated the participation of international corporations in the promotion of architectural urban projects.

Throughout this period of rapid adjustment, Parma and Páez Restrepo, core members of the departments of structures and geo-technique of Cusego (Cuellar, Serrano, Gomez), became independent in order to support a series of architectural innovations. In the 1962 design competition for the BCH building, where ESUS competed against the team of Arturo Robledo, Guillermo Bermúdez, and Rogelio Salmona, the strategy was to make the most of a terrain bordered on both sides. To achieve this, an open concept ground floor was applied, with an unprecedented span of 30 meters, and for the office tower 9 meter post-tensioned cantilevers were built to avoid the use of perimeter columns so that they would not interrupt the open flow at ground level. Rafael Esguerra pointed out that the structure of the BCH was unprecedented in Colombia; its cable technology was exported to the United States with a Colombian patent.

With the advent of the currency exchange crisis, there was a sudden suspension 8 Martínez, Carlos. Arquitectura en Colombia. Ediciones PROA, Litografía Colombia 1963. According to Carlos Martínez: “Architects such as Le Corbusier and Breuer vividly praised the surprise caused by the neatness of the new buildings in Bogotá”.

9 Martínez, Carlos. Arquitectura en Colombia. Ediciones PROA, Litografía Colombia, 1963.

of imports and the supply of construction elements was affected. It then became necessary for Parma and Esguerra to start the production (in the basement of the construction site) of locally crafted cables, shields, and anchoring. This evolved into a system widely promoted by Colombian Mechanical Engineering or IMC. Architects and clients were more and more interested in prefabrication. After Cusego, Parma, and Antoniotti founded Prefabricaciones Ltda. In 1948, several other companies also started working in this area. As a result, during the early 1960s, ESUS, Parma, Sívori, and Zorio established IMC to undertake the design and manufacturing processes of heavy machinery for the construction of cables and post-tensioning systems. During this time, ESUS was in charge of buildings designed by third party companies such as the Sabana Building, which at the time was the largest concrete structure in Colombia. For its construction the Liebherr crane was used; later on Parma would study it in detail to create a series of collapsible cranes for IMC, in response to the industrial protectionism of that era.

There was the idea of applying new pre-stressed concrete systems by promoting industrial prefabrication on a large scale. To achieve this, the Colombian Society of Pre-Stressed Materials or Pretcol was founded in 1962. This society came about with the support of developer Jaime Iragorri, the group Jaime Arias y Genaro Payán (founder of the OLAP, an important infrastructure construction firm) and of ESUS. Pretcol would be the pioneer in the prefabrication of bridges and houses.

Within the growing presence of structures done by ESUS in Santander Park, the commission of the Gold Museum in 1963 meant a valuable advance for architectural and construction solutions in the area. Its construction concluded in 1968, and received tremendous international recognition. Banco de la República presented the idea of the commission to the firm, in an attempt to decongest its banking establishment, and spoke timidly of their “gold collection”. Sáenz and Samper travelled on their own accord to Mexico in order to collect a wide array of research from the Museum of Anthropology there, and the prior international research used in the formation of its design. In order to face the subterranean waters of the area, dual containment walls were prefabricated. The safebox like building for the keeping of the Pre-Hispanic Collection offered Esguerra and

Parma the possibility of eliminating corner columns on the ground floor. It also allowed them to take advantage of the exceptional conditions of an assembled and post-tensioneded system of curtain walls, and the benefit of a visual continuity with the neighboring BCH building.

When faced with the construction of the second stage of the library for Banco de la República, it was decided to restrict the auditorium to chamber music only. Without an expert in acoustics, Esguerra and Samper finally approached the engineer Manuel Drezner to be a project adviser. With one box inside of another, they managed to arrange a warped wooden structure for the ceiling, and the sidewalls of the auditorium to complement it, thereby creating the required conditions for reflection and absorption of sound. The interior finish carpentry of Jaime Nariño created a mysterious type of tropical wood ceiling over the heads of the public. After several rehearsals the acoustics were not working as planned, so chairs and carpets were added to the auditorium.

They agreed that it was necessary to have a live test with real musicians and a public, for which the choir of the Universidad de Los Andes was invited. When Drezner finally arrived with his measuring device, the acoustic results were satisfactory for Samper and Esguerra.

The initial design of the Pan American Life building, a project commissioned by private competition, planned to use only one of its floors for the company. It was being discussed if it was within planning the regulations to use the lower floor, or if the building could be elevated over its “pilotis” or columns.

According to Samper, in the initial architectonic sketches, these columns “were looking a lot like Marseille”. As a result, Doménico Parma insisted that the columns that formed the exterior supports and that allowed for a completely free ground floor, were straight from top-to-bottom and supported the structure in a way that assured monolithic windows sills and prefabricated floor joists.

The nature of a private competition allowed for “thoroughness in designed and permanent control over the manufacturing processes”.10 The process of raising external columns culminated with the acrobatics of a crane-bridge at the top which raised the large beams that trucks paraded along the streets of Bogota.

There was already an accumulated experience and skill which, aside from 10

Pan American Life. PROA # 189, August 1967

structural expertise, was also recognized as the “careful handling of the interior details”. This skill was evident in previously awarded buildings such as the Gold Museum and the extension of the Luis Ángel Arango Library.

The Avianca tower: the apotheosis of the team (1963-1969) The Avianca tower represented a crucial case when understanding the mental transition and the maturation of resources and methodology in industrialized construction in the urban milieu. The gradual ‘verticalization’ of buildings in Bogotá began in the 1920s up through the end of the 1950s. It has also been discussed how unique projects such as the Bavaria Towers (1962) provided innovations in terms of real estate on an organizational scale and construction techniques. For the Avianca project in 1962, special guidelines were negotiated and favor was given to building a tall structure. In 1963 Avianca Airlines began promoting a major project by means of a design competition, which broke with the schemes of private invitational commissions; and where architecture firms would design and be responsible for construction. The president of the company, the industrialist Juan Pablo Ortega Gómez, wanted a building that “was not only Avianca’s symbol but also a symbol of the immense human and material possibilities in Colombia…”, and that would “represent the highest level of Colombian architecture and engineering and be a real contribution to the city and to the country”.11 A generous amount of time was given to the competition’s entrants to prepare their proposals, which allowed four groups to deliver plans with diverse sensibilities in architecture, urban planning, and construction. The project presented by Esguerra Sáenz, Urdaneta, Samper, and Ricaurte Carrizosa Prieto stood out due to the unique and ground-breaking design contributions by its participants. Rafael Esguerra’s original construction concepts, Doménico Parma’s structural conception, Antonio Páez’ foundation ideas, and Álvaro Tapias’ ventilation were amongst these innovations. After the dream of the Pilot Plan, which was documented in a highly polemic sketch featuring a major tower in the heart of the city, the design and construction of the Avianca building signified a rupture of many paradigms. Samper, with his characteristic meticulousness, kept sketches of its preparatory phase; these sketches would later provide the proof of 11 Concurso Edificio Avianca. PROA # 162 November 1963. Avianca. Historia Íntima de un Edificio. Escala 43/44

his concept for the project. It started with the idea of a tower with ‘devolved legs’ on the lower floor, but after a series of meetings with Esguerra, Parma, and Páez, ideas shifted towards creating a configuration of open floors featuring corner columns, a system of floating foundations for the four basements, a controlled process of excavation, earthquake resistant plates placed every 8 floors, and lighter plates on top of the earthquake resistant ones. These lighter plates were pre-stressed and hoisted into position by jacks.

The treasure recorded in Parma’s sketches shows the use of a kind of lift-slab, through arranging reinforced reticular concrete slabs. The slabs were fabricated in groups of five to be hoisted in agile collocation. It offered, “a set design of all architectural and structural components, avoiding all elements that are not fully justified and/or fully integrated”. Samper highlighted that “architecture, a creative art par excellence, is a serious job that is rational, based on well founded principles… It is the teamwork of multiple specialists, where each one is responsible for one part of the whole. The whole is synthesis, a process of refinement, simplification, and integration”.

The project was awarded in September of 1963 and it faced strong opposition from many sides. A reaction to these critics could explain the renewed devotion of its team members to progressively make it more refined and viable. Due to a change in urban development regulations that stalled the process to get a permit, the project was presented to a special council meeting in February of 1964 (with the assistance of the representatives of the neighboring properties), which prompted its approval by December of that year. As a result, a wonderful process of development in architectural and technical design unfolded, and construction began in August of 1967 to be finished in November of 1969, at which time the first floors had already been occupied for six months. An extra floor was added, taking advantage of the foundation’s capacity, the structure, and new regulations.

Esguerra pointed out: the technical installations of the Avianca building had been designed so that, besides their function, as such, they would also harmonize with

architectonic needs and especially with the indispensable flexibility of a horizontal building whose owners and future needs were unknown.

Besides the foundation and structure, one of the radical positions of the new design was the constructional solution for the façades; Samper and Esguerra combining their ideas on the matter. It ought to be recognized that in their own context, curtain façades were well known, such as in the SOM project for the Banco de Bogotá (end of the 1950s); however, due to its cost, buildings that mixed structural elements in concrete with curtain wall glass dominated the urban landscape. The new design planned a façade composed of elements with vertical veins or concrete parasols; a porcelainized metallic parapet to retain uniform colors over time, and a window system. The new design allowed the fabrication of its elements in series, based on the plans’ measurements. The parapets arrived from the factory ready to be assembled.

The system developed allowed for the placement of up to one floor per day.

The construction of the Avianca building was a learning scenario for consultants, contractors, and suppliers, who found a novel and demanding setting which made this project a technical and organizational point of reference.

Off course, the race of the skyscrapers, which started with the Bavaria towers, was visible in Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali as a competition amongst companies that wanted prominent landmarks in the urban landscape and that, in a very short time, offered new projects and constructions, in increasing scale, with diverse architectural and technical approaches. ESUS shared the design of the Coltejer tower, awarded by contest, with other firms; this project had simpler demands for its realization process. At the beginning of the following decade, ESUS, together with Pizano Pradilla Caro Restrepo, were in charge of designing the Mazuera tower. This project demanded complex construction systems for basements and faced efficiency limitations in the use of its elevated floors, so this project was never built. A fire broke out in the Avianca building on 23 July of 1973; 250 people were rescued by helicopter and after 8 months of diagnosis and a year of reconstruction, the solidity of ESUS’ original design and construction was established. It was given acclaim in 1974 in Chicago.

Another example of great prowess and technical excellence was proven unequivocally on the 6th of October of 1974, when after four months of studies, the Cudecom building of 5,500 tons was moved a distance of 29 meters over the span of ten hours by the Páez, ESUS, and Parma teams. This exercise demonstrated knowledge and planning skills that have retained global records for decades.

Samper and technical research In Samper’s work there is a technical rigor that shines through in many cases, such as progressive urban planning (1970), and in his previous and distinguished participation in important projects such as PREVI (1969), where he was assisted by Urbano Ripoll, a pupil of ESUS research. Even though housing did not attract Rafael Esguerra in a technological sense, the game of putting together pre-fabricated pieces for the San Francisco multi-family project deeply interested him.

During the following decades ESUS continued to work on several projects resulting in important contributions. Amongst them were several designs and constructions conceived by Samper of the ESUS team. To mention a few: the Avianca Administrative Centre combined pre-fabricated pieces for a more rational complex; the El Tiempo building involved careful construction and spatial treatments; the Cartagena Convention Centre demanded a variety of complex installations; and the Colsubsidio Citadel contributed to the virtues of structural masonry.

Great friends: the teammates discuss their work When Gabriel Serrano traveled to the United States to research the syllabus for the new Faculty of Architecture at the Universidad Nacional, he remembers: “one of the main aspects of focus regarding studies was to simultaneously educate designers and builders, we did not have a tradition of architects, and designers alone would not have played any role”.12

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12 Interview with Gabriel Serrano en Witzler, Eric (coord). Aspectos de la arquitectura contemporánea en Colombia. Centro Colombo Americano, Colima, 1977

c

Avianca building under construction

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d

For ESUS, Esguerra was crucial.

Architecture requires the static concept of engineering, and as long as this is not strong, the great ideas of the architects should be subjected to the opinions of an engineer. The architect should have a great technical base that allows him to understand and be open to new technologies and provide a ground for his or her great ideas.

For him, an example was Doménico Parma, a dreamer and even naïve, but with a great practical sense, which allowed him to give dimension to what he or the others imagined with an important ingredient: a great love for innovation (…) The engineering designs were made in a process of dialogue with the architects (...) an engineer with an architect’s perspective13.

The common denominator of the firms’ projects was that a design or construction was never repeated. Each work was unique and was subject to different needs and functions. For each project there was research and analysis. Each project had a different set of challenges. Its function and processes had to be deeply studied.

In a way, a

architecture was filtered, in order to be functional without becoming a mere machine.

Architect-builder Rafael Esguerra, coordinated this “filtering” process between technique and architecture: Whenever problems arose, the team would travel with technicians, electricians or whoever had issues to deal with; with the plans in hand, necessary corrections were made. There were always exchanges of criteria and techniques with the outside world.

Esguerra noted that in cases such as the BCH tower the visible architecture did not do justice to its internal structure, and that in general it was unknown that for its windows at the end for the cantilevers, security schemes had been planned in advance to satisfy the earthquake-resistance regulations of the country. Vigilantly, Parma “calculated and then with a slide rule verified it, always double checking”.

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Esguerra remembered that when they began to work with Samper’s designs “they already had a basic notion of the building, a type of engineering with well defined basic objectives”. His designs had a vision, in most part the success of these constructions, especially in Avianca, was due to the team work of Parma, as an engineer with an aesthetic sense and solid calculations, Samper as an architect great with vision, and Esguerra “an architect with a strong interest and dominion over technical matters”. The idea of architecture was validated by the builder’s tests; the design was then refined and meticulously built.

With the ongoing changes in the context of construction, and increasing real estate speculation, developers took control over the architects. At the beginning of the 70s for architects “what was important was the profession, to be an architect was a serious job”. During this time, Samper coordinated all

BCH building and the Gold Museum under construction

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13 Vargas Caicedo, Hernando: De Esguerra, Sáenz, Urdaneta Suárez a Esguerra, Sáenz, Urdaneta y Samper: elaboración del espíritu de calidad, in chapter Materiales, Procesos y Productos, Parte I: actores y elementos en la urbanización y edificación en las décadas de la modernidad, in Vargas Caicedo, Hernando (ed) Cincuenta años en la construcción de Colombia, Camacol 1957-2007, Panamericana, 2007

In the teamwork at Esguerra, Saenz and Samper, Germรกn was responsible for providing aesthetic and programmatic order in the entire design process. True to the canons of rational architecture, he sought clear volumes and recognizable construction systems.

The results of this search are grand synthesis buildings: in their form, in their supporting structure and in the construction systems of lesser order, always looking to the consistency of details with the whole.

Germรกn Samper in his studio at Parque de Santander

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of Álvaro Sáenz was also to be expected, flowers and lunch invitations were classic gestures of a gentleman of the interior. There was fear around Juan Pizano’s vigor, so he would probably be seen getting off the airplane holding the “gringo’s” arm. Finally, it was clear that despite all these attempts, at the end of the day the businessman would mention that he had an appointment with José Gómez Pinzón who would tell him “I have all the project studies done for you”.

aspects of design with his team of architects and draftsmen. Esguerra remembers, “the costs of drawing were always very high because they had to include every single element and detail of the project.” Esguerra coordinated the construction; he was in charge of all the engineering components and the manner in which they were integrated with the architectural design. He was also in charge of construction, with the support of advisors in different fields of engineering.

Sáenz was in charge of administrative management. “They were very different individuals in their way of life and tastes”, according to Esguerra, ESUS’ associates could work together due to “their education and tolerance of the other’s judgments”. There were heated conversations, but predominately over the “search for solutions and a clear interest in the perfection of the work, with the value of criticism used to analyze the project in its different phases”.

Finally, “there was a sense of commitment to the decisions made which, with a critical attitude, allowed for the refinement of concepts without resentment”.

Totaling inventive builders, designers, analysts, and problem solvers, with a strength equal to their rigor and passion, explorers outside of the references catalogue; the ESUS architects and builders from Bogotá created a strong firm, that had a long term impact on the city and the country. As in 1923, when Le Corbusier referred to engineers, these active and useful professionals represented the optimism of modernity in action.

Perhaps the easiest way to conclude this analysis of decades of fruitful professional collaboration is to address Samper’s voice again, when he referred to Cusego’s venerable contribution after his first 60 years. It was about understanding the firm as a place for the education of professionals, with a sense of responsibility for what their country required, finding the “Colombian way of their professional practice”. The firm was at the frontline of the capacity to promote multiple vital industries for construction. Major contributions were made and several lessons were passed down to generations.

Esguerra arrived at construction through architecture, as an inventor in search of solutions. To complement him, Samper focused on formulating questions and conceptual designs; the research and origin of their ideas was always recorded in notes and memoirs. The process encompassed parallel agendas with an enormous reciprocal trust. Every associate had their own field, and supporting them all was Sáenz, taking care of the general organization and of commissions; he occasionally took part as a guest in the conceptualization process. Certain of his role, Germán Samper did not delegate what he considered to be essential in his projects.

The firm was a Colombian expression of the techniques of the moment (…) corresponding to a creative process between practical and functional, well conceived in terms of construction, and the appropriate use of local materials (...) continuation throughout a long trajectory of the same attitude (...) quality (...) professional dedication and a sense of teamwork.

By the end of the glorious 60s, Samper recognized elements of the firms’ methodology, formed by architects working in interdisciplinary teams.

He says of having a builder as an associate, “projects that emerged could be conceived from their origin with a realistic sense. Thus, it is an architecture of equilibrium between the aesthetic and the practical. It is a moderate architecture”. Without naming colleagues and contemporary contenders, Samper would add that, “the risks of a very personal architecture that could follow the path of fantasy or the exotic were eliminated”.

In its 1970s catalogue, ESUS collected a list of its works, clients, achievements, and collaborators. As in Gropius TAC, ESUS believed in teamwork and in the promise of industrialization. An attitude of continuous learning had been established that ESUS adopted, alongside consultants, with and for the clients. In this case architecture was understood as a professional practice, an occupation, a collection of convictions on how buildings should appear and function; the work of its partners at the heart of a well thought-out proposal in action.

“We were great friends”, remembers Samper when he refers to his colleagues. In the 60s and 70s, a great proportion of works were done in association with other firms in Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali, from competitions to designs and construction. An anecdote expresses the self-caricature that was done by the heads of the major firms in Bogotá at the time. In it, the firms were waiting for a North American businessman to arrive in Bogotá to assign a contract. They were all alert, wanting to lure him. Rafael Obregón’s friendliness was depicted by sailing trips along the north coast. The courtesy

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Avianca tower under construction

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Post-stressed concrete structure, Central Bank of Mortgage building

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Architect Rafael Esguerra was a great construction pioneer in Colombia. Aside from being a talented designer, as shown in his project for the first phase of the Luis Ángel Arango Library, he channeled his creativity to perfecting and inventing construction systems. The challenges posed by the complex constructions implied in the buildings designed on the drawing tables at Esguerra Sáenz y Samper became research labs and true construction innovations. His mastery with concrete is found not only in the quality of its manufacture but also in the way he approached all construction possibilities derived from its handling. The challenge posed by the construction of the Avianca building, from its caissons to the large pre-manufactured beams, paved a path of excellence for Colombian construction.

Post-stressed concrete was first used in structures with large cantilevers in the Banco Central Hipotecario building, and this implied having to manufacture the tools required for the job. The Pan American Life Insurance Co. building, to the great surprise of city builders, was built by first making the large columns up to their final size and then installing large precast beams made at the Estruco plant, as if it were child’s play. And if in bold structures Rafael found fertile ground in which to develop his talent, he also applied it to the most minute details in building manufacturing: brick rigging, sheet window details, installations, and a great deal of knowledge and even secrets that remain consigned not only in the buildings designed by the firm, but also in the numerous constructions built created by other designers, such as the Torres del Parque by Rogelio Salmona or the courts and attorney general’s offices by Aníbal Moreno.

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Pan American Life Insurance building under construction

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d

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BCH, Central Mortgage Bank Building Esguerra Saenz and Samper Structural engineer: Doménico Parma Bogotá, Colombia, 1964 First place in competition Client: Central Mortgage Bank Scope of work: Plan and construction Area: 400.950 sq.ft.

The project that was presented to the Banco Central Hipotecario, which is responsible for the promotion and financing of homes, was awarded the contract in a privately held competition. The building is located in front of Santander Park, and is situated between two shorter buildings with which a harmony is achieved on the eastern side of the public space. The project consists of a square tower of offices surrounded by a stepped platform that is accessible by the public. The configuration of the platform complements its neighboring buildings; it is designed so that it backs down as it ascends until it merges with the tower.

The building’s interior is characterized by ample and highly flexible spaces, considering that permanent changes in the spatial disposition of office buildings are always necessary. The floors, free of columns, have structures of wide spans between 20 and 38 meters in the lower floors. The tower has 9-meter overhangs on each side of a strong central axis, comprised of elevators on one end and the services for each floor on the other. A vertical perforation produces a large empty space that provides light and spatial continuity to each level. In order to achieve this, systems of post-stressed concrete were employed, which provided exemplary results for subsequent application in concrete structures within Colombia and abroad.

Both the interior and exterior were approached using an austere appearance and simple style, which contrasts the tendency of using marble veneer and other luxurious materials that are typical of this type of building. To achieve this sensibility, exposed concrete finishes and laminated windows were implemented. The vertical tripartite distribution of platform, tower, and building top are implemented horizontally as well, due to the interruption and division of the parapet strips in three equal parts.

Corte

Fachada occidental

Fachada oriental

Plantas pisos de la torre Planta primer piso

Planta tercer piso The volume of the BCH rises on Plaza Santander with notable symmetry. Aesthetics, sun screening and careful construction order are present in the sun breakers covering the two main faรงades. The interior design, supported by the long beams, provides great flexibility and generous, well-lit interior spaces.

Gold Museum Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Structural engineer: Doménico Parma Bogotá, Colombia, 1963 National Architecture Prize 1970 Client: Banco de la República Scope of work: Plan and construction Program and scientific consultant: anthropologist Luis Duque Gómez Area: 71.000 sq.ft.

Extention: GX Samper Arquitectos, Germán y Ximena Samper 2003-2008 Structural engineer: Hernán Sandoval Museography and interior architecture: Efraín Riaño, Fernando de la Carrera, Germán Ramírez, Luis Fernando Ramírez, Sergio García, Álvaro Bohórquez y Gina Urazán.

Area: 68.000 sq.ft.

The Gold Museum is located on the east side of Santander Park, the cultural and historical center of the capital. Designed and built by Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper in 1963 to house the pre-Colombian gold artifacts collection of the Central Bank (Banco de la República), the building was awarded the National Architecture Prize in 1970.

Outwardly the museum resembles a coffer, with its sober and hermetic façade clad in bushhammered white marble. The austere appearance of the volume is the backdrop to the intense urban dynamics of Santander Park. Inwardly the building acts like a security vault, a solid reinforced concrete structure provided with mechanical facilities to produce the ideal environmental conditions required for the proper preservation of the pieces it holds.

The public areas that greet visitors include the first and second floor lobbies and the monumental staircase that connects them, as large, ample spaces of great vitality and luminosity. From the entrance, following a preset order, visitors move through an especially narrative spatial journey characterized by stimulating architectural and museum experiences. This architectural project deliberately contrasts the intimate spatial ambiance of the exhibition halls with the ample, generous lobby areas that precede and lead to them.

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In the exhibition halls lighting is diffused and the architecture retreats, so that more than 10,000 small sized pre-Colombian pieces become the main protagonists of this space. The architecture stimulates direct, close contact between spectator and each one of the small works of art exhibited. The successive chambers gather, in apparently floating suspended windows, micro-scenarios of varied colored backgrounds, so the gold can be shown in all its splendor and convey its message of poetry and art to the spectator. Some of the pieces need to reach us via a magnifying lens,so small is their size, and so large their purpose.

a

Modern technology has made it possible to reach these goals. Long span structures provide exhibition halls with total flexibility. Controlled lighting permits setting the right ambiance. The air supply is controlled to perfection for proper preservation of artifacts. Sound can be brought at will to any corner of the museum, while TV monitors serve as strategically located eyes. Bullet proof glass, highly sensitive alarm systems, metal grids suspended from the ceiling, all supply the facilities that diverse museum scripts may require. Reinforced walls comprise the third floor vault, where El Dorado is stored, protected a by a beautiful security door. Also, technological innovations made available at the time of construction, such as electronic audio guides whereby invisible guides explain museum contents without bothering other spectators, in a choice of four languages selected at will.

The high specifications regarding networks, special services and mechanical rooms have given rise to studies so careful that ancillary architectural spaces are given the same attention as the main ones, such as the exhibition areas of archaeological pieces.

As in the inside of a jewel box, the walls of the halls are paneled in natural wood and the floors carpeted, for acoustic and comfort reasons. Every line, stroke, material and color seeks to highlight the elements contained in the space.

The museum is also a center of analysis, research, reflection and meditation. Hence the creation of the fourth floor around an inner patio, as in a medieval cloister, isolated from the outside world, which houses laboratories, shops, libraries and all other facilities required for the scientific work of the cultural organization.

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First stage, first floor

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First stage, second floor

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First stage, third floor

First stage, fourth floor c

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Interior spaces, first stage

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In 2003, G.X. Samper Arquitectos extended and renovated the museum to significantly increase its area. The original building had become insufficient, not only in terms of the public exhibition areas but also in its scientific and security facilities. The Colombian Central Bank undertook this extension, which doubled the museum’s area.

To this end the bank acquired the lot behind the museum and designed an 8 stories building connected with the original 4 stories construction. Done in the same materials, the volume was designed with a curve that makes for a more gracile volume in the extended area. Construction of the new building, currently in progress, and the renovation of the interior of the original one, reveal how much the building remains current, as exhibition areas are updated in tune with the most recent museum standards.

Interior spaces, second stage

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Luis Ángel Arango Library Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Bogota, Colombia, 1962 Client: Bank of the Republic Scope of work: Planning and construction Area: 77.500 sq.ft.

The project, sponsored by the Colombian Central Bank, houses the largest bibliographic collection in Colombia, and is also home to other cultural activities of national significance. The Luis Ángel Arango Library occupies a block within a historical and cultural center of Bogotá. In recognition of a consolidated traditional building style, the complex consists of enclosed volumes with marble veneer equivalent in height to its neighboring colonial constructions.

The project was developed over three building stages. The first two were designed and built by Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper from 1956 to 1959; Álvaro Rivera Realpe designed the third stage of the Library. What stands out in the first stage of building, designed by Rafael Esguerra García, is that of the grand reading room, which is encased by a concrete vault with curved beams that intersect in two directions, forming a diagonal-reticular shape that accommodates a rhythmic pattern of perforations, with skylights that permit the entrance of overhead light. The concrete was left exposed to contrast with the overlays of wood.

From the second stage of building, what stands out is the ovoid chamber music concert hall.

Its acoustical and architectonic nature was realized by means of the double curvature of its floor, with comfortable individual chairs that give perfect visibility. The discreet and elegant lighting creates a harmonious space, beautifully suited to its function. The suspended wooden ceiling interrupts the double-height mechanical elements of the space while fully supporting its acoustics. Its extremely high quality of construction has allowed it to remain a favorite space of musicians and audiences in the capital. It truly is a tremendous and comfortable space to be in, and most of all, it is awe-inspiring in its perfection in acoustics, a delight for all senses.

In April of 2010, the National Council of Cultural Heritage declared the Concert Hall of the Luis Ángel Arango Library of the Bank of the Republic an Architectural Heritage site and a Cultural Monument in Colombia. Fifty years after its completion, the concert hall remains in perfect condition and continues to be a first-rate cultural space, a favorite of many world renowned musicians who perform in Colombia, and appreciated by those who enjoy not only the music but the ambiance and spatial beauty within. A space truly designed to make listening a pleasure.

First stage

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First floor

Third floor

Concert hall section

Second floor

Roof level

Concert Hall José Antonio de Ory

“

The architect begins with a blank sheet of paper when told to design a concert hall.” Germán Samper says to me while we walked around my favorite space in Bogotá, the Concert Hall of the Luis Ángel Arango Library, which he designed in the mid 1970’s. “How does it begin?” A proper outline is needed, and as in mathematics one must reduce problems to the essential. In a concert hall, the principal space, or what Louis Kahn calls the “served space”, is where the musicians will play; everything else is secondary or “servant space”. “What is essential in a concert hall for chamber music,” he asked, and the answer offered the variables of the problem: hearing is essential and seeing is complementary.

Getting them to see is a merely geometrical problem, so a problem of architecture, and the architect then begins to draw on his blank sheet of paper.

“A warped surface,” said Samper, “a regulated surface cannot be developed, as in the case of the conoid,”, explained the dictionary when I tried to understand what the architect had meant. An ellipse, in every day language, is an organic shape like the one on a snail or a fossil, a womb where there are no edges and it is not clear what is inside and what is outside, and one enters unaware since nothing was crossed and one is suddenly inside of that shell-like space that surrounds and houses.

An elliptical shape, as his engineer mentioned, is the only one that does not work acoustically and so the walls were tilted and the space has no right angles. “I think that the 90º angle does not communicate well with other angles, it only dialogues with straight angles,” says Eduardo Chillida. “On the contrary, 88º and 93º are more tolerant and their use enriches spatial dialogue.”

So it also is a tolerant space, tolerant and kind.

The blank page continues to be filled. The architect decides to incorporate the stage within the room, make it an integrated part and not something separate and distant, or superior. The spectator and the performer share the same space. The separation is not between the two, but between the kind and tolerant space, where music is made and heard, and an acoustic box hidden behind a mesh of elements in wood, a “basket”, Samper says, that separates the architectural problem from the acoustic one; which is how to get the waves that come from one point to arrive everywhere and reverberate. The performers that have played in this Concert Hall praise and love its sound. The acoustic solution is not seen and the technique does not interfere in the beauty of the whole. Even more, that which hides the technique, the basket made of wood slats, fanned out one after the other converging at the top, adds so much beauty to the Hall that it becomes a jewel-space, as if made by a goldsmith, a small cathedral. What metaphor could I possibly use when the space is as important as the music played in it and the experience becomes the place, the sound, the wood, the performers; it becomes sublime.

It is time, indeed, that the Concert Hall of the Luis Ángel Arango Library of Bogotá ceases to have an accessory name, since names help to shape and even create reality, and that it becomes emancipated and takes its own name. Why not the name Germán Samper Concert Hall?

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Germรกn Samper in the Concert Hall

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b

Pan American Life Insurance Building Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Bogotá, Colombia, 1967 First place on private competition Client: Pan American Life Insurance Company Scope of work: Planning and construction Area: 94.720 sq.ft.

The proposal submitted by the firm Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper won in a privately held competition.

The location of this elongated building is on the carrera séptima, or Seventh Street, which is a main road in the capital city. From the front of The Pan American Life Insurance Building exceptional views towards the National Park and the Eastern hills can be seen.

The concept was conceived to symbolize and represent the Pan American Life Insurance Company that, at the time, had headquarters occupying various floors. The result is honest in nature, regarding its construction, aesthetically moderate and spatially generous. It is a demonstration, amongst other characteristics, of the open conceptualization of the first floor that, in spite of the lobby, is completely unobstructed and open to the exterior; following the principles of Le Corbusier.

This building, due to its minimal and economical use of materials, highlights the value of simplicity.

The building’s architecture is a true reflection of a bare structural system that consists of exposed concrete columns of decreasing section and parapets with bush hammered marble veneer, on top of which the windows rest. The first level is elevated over a plinth made of terracotta tiles, which distances it from the parking lot, thus avoiding the visual intervention of parked automobiles. In the complex nothing is lacking or being used in excess.

At the request of the proprietors, the elimination of the central columns gave way to a wide span in the structural system (18 meters on average). This span employs structural parapets and peripheral columns that stand out vertically from the building like masts on a ship, and it incorporates prefabricated type “double T” mezzanine levels. The constituent elements were hoisted laterally with specialized equipment and then slid horizontally into place by a mobile crane supported by the peripheral columns that were previously fused. The method and equipment were specifically designed for this occasion, which was far from the usual local construction practices. a

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Lower faรงade section

Lateral section

Main façade

Floor plan

The building designed for Pan American Life (today Ecopetrol) is a landmark on carrera sĂŠptima. As conceived by Samper, the new volume consists of the vertical elements of the structure and solid and horizontal planes of the parapets. The separation of the building from the ground, with a base serving as pedestal, accentuates its sculpture-like nature, while simultaneously making its mass lighter. Over time the first floor was intervened, which made it lose part of its transparency.

MEMOIRS OF COMPETITIONS AND ARCHITECTURAL PROJECTS Germán Samper, The Construction of Systematic Thought

T

Rodrigo Cortés and Fernando Arias

he present article on the architect Germán Samper highlights the construction of reasoned and collective knowledge, a useful tool for the production of an architectural project. Such knowledge consists of an interpretation of the foundations of the architecture discipline - the importance of inertia when working with conditions predetermined by the past, that is to say, from examples of architecture; the mechanisms of the project, and of the mechanisms used by the architect to update them.

with the collaboration of Andrea Meneses

In other words, it is not about emphasizing the artistic creed of an architect, or investigating the personal and subjective nucleus of the architect, which would characterize the collective commitment of a generation or the quality of an architectural movement.

The interest instead is to revise the application and use of that knowledge to serve the production of an architectural project.

This paper deals with a series of clues that allow one to recognize the existence of principles that, while belonging to the discipline, are not always evident when confronted with an assignment.

In the specific case of Germán Samper, it relates to the observation of useful discipline principles when confronting the requisites of a competition, and, especially the memoirs or texts that induce an architectural form manifesting the basis of the competition. A place and its associated activity are presented as the origins of an architectonic answer – the project - and constitute a formalized whole that links a truly complex series of events and are evident in an innovative technique.

This is what Germán Samper and his firm Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper (ESYS) were recognized for doing, especially during the sixties and seventies.

This summary is not intended to cover all the architectural projects executed by the firm and the competitions in which they participated. Although the overwhelming image of the architectural form is marked with the construction of a technical signature that Samper defined as Clean, referring to the construction technique and use of the visible reinforced concrete learned in multiple experiments carried out for Le Corbusier (who, in turn, learned them in the workshop of A. Perret), this construction technique cannot hide the composition technique of the project.

By this we mean the mental construction, the rationality and the logic on which the project is based and that is represented in a structure, the grid, formed by the principles of architecture and the successive ways of formalizing a project. This grid likewise gives answers regarding time, place, program and techniques requested. It would be precisely this process of decision-making,

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the one which Germán Samper learned in Le Corbusier’s workshop, that was successfully reapplied in the competitions Germán’s Samper’s firm successfully participated.

are gauged in conceptual terms, and the implantation, technical, structural and constructive proceed more rapidly. The utility of this technique can be illustrated with two examples. A. Monestiroli suggests the map of Paris sketched by P. Patte, in which he included the proposal for the contest - a square dedicated to Louis XV. In Patte’s map, the elements that constitute the theory of the city’s construction can be comprehended, an authentic manifesto of city planning of the illustration period, because the sketch “represents a city built by monumental references immersed in the homogeneous and compact tissues of the city”2

Both the project procedure as well as the formalization of the building, in this case in response to the competition, are evidenced in the written records of the project, which thoroughly explain the work. The virtue of Germán Samper has been his ability to logically and clearly set forth the arguments of the projects. He submits the project procedure laid out in Le Corbusier’s project grid, proposed for CIAM, first rehearsed in the presentation of urban projects of the postwar period and later put into practice in the realization of Chandigarh, especially through the climatic grid. The climatic grid also placed on the table the rapport between a project procedure and the climatic conditions in India, that is to say the realistic conditions.

M. Tafuri attributes to the international competition for the new headquarters of the Chicago Tribune, the capacity to put into evidence the crisis between the skyscraper and the city, and a comparison of the answers provided by European architectural culture with that of North America’s. Tafuri adds that even the prescription introduced into the basis of the contest determined and characterized the skyscraper projects by its emphasis on the “formal eloquence” and the consequent omission of the “structural aspects” (read: the urban aspects in architecture). In analyzing the competition, Tafuri finds a key event that links “the history of the tertiary structures of the North American cities, disintegrated by the technological innovations, structural and proper to the building”3 (Ibíd., p. 390).

*** A characteristic feature, typical of the architectural project, is that it sets forth diverse and even contradictory answers to the same question.

This property was set forth by Martí Arís to describe the knowledge produced in architecture. As well as emerging from a basis of logical thought, the architectural project springs up also from another premise: the non-existence of an unequivocal solution, but rather multiple solutions to the problems set forth. Martí quotes F. Tavora’s answer in an interview: “In architecture the opposite can also be true”1. This is characteristic of architectural projects presented in competitions.

Le Corbusier’s participation in international competitions is paradigmatic because of his reaction against the arbitrariness of juries, widely illustrated in the Society of Nations and headquarters of United Nations competitions. He made evident a project reasoning, based on optimizing, improving and efficiently using the existing. He considered the component elements of the project separately and part of the structure that must relate to the external incidental conditions (site, technique, program), applied the adequate tools and project procedures and finally, foresaw the scope of the project from its initial formulation, a prescriptive text.

Competitions constitute, and have constituted throughout the history of architecture, a suitable way to convoke the diversity and multiplicity of answers and options in an architectural project, in contrast to the neutrality of the call, that is to say the equal terms set forth by the conditions: an impartial jury, common basis of the contest, the program, location, etc. In other words, the competition minimizes the factors that in any other case are key to determining the singularity of a project.

This similarity between the characteristics of a project and the difficulties of architectural competitions is useful to our hypothesis. The learning process of Germán Samper during his stay in the Le Corbusier workshop (19491953) was focused on assuming the architectonic project idea and reality as the systematic and logical evolution of a thought, reasoning through a project set in successive situations by comparing various formal alternatives. Germán Samper practiced what he had learned when he returned to Colombia, and participated in public competitions with the firm Esguerra, Sáenz y Samper.

The possibility of comparing amongst themselves the diverse answers to the same problem in architecture generated traditions that have incorporated an internal logic of production in architectural projects. The comparison of options results in expediting the procedure of testing alternatives. The first steps of a project, the most difficult and in which the most complex decisions 1 C. Martí, El arte y la ciencia: dos modos de hablar con el mundo, article included in the book La cimbra y el arco, FCA, Barcelona, 2005, pp. 21-29

2 La Arquitectura de la realidad, Ed. Del Serbal, Barcelona, 1993, p. 147.

3 La montaña desencantada. El rascacielos y la ciudad, article included in the book La ciudad americana, GG, Barcelona, 1975, pp. 387-512.

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Regarding this issue, it is important to mention that while traveling back to Columbia aboard the Antilles ship, Samper wrote a note on the back of a draft picture of the climatic grid applied to the Secretariat of Chandigarh project (fig. 1&2): This outline can give birth to a series of scientific experiments that can be implemented in Colombia’s architecture; here you can clearly identify the collaboration of several disciplines working together that up until now had not been jointly collaborating with the purpose of resolving specific construction problems.

By construction I mean all types of construction: homes, industrial sites, offices that require a specific climatic conditioning. The problem is always expressed in the same way: 1- every building is implemented in a climatic environment making it necessary to know these conditions in an integral, synthetic graphic through an annual cycle. 2- This building is bound to protect men developing very different activities that require a special environment, such as air, light, heat, etc. There is a modification to the external climate. It is necessary to know the best conditions that must be obtained. 3- The architect must understand and it’s his mission of creating these ideal conditions by all means available. These are the 3 chapters and 3 different study groups: 1) Climate data

light

heat and cold

geographers’ physical geography

rain

astronomers

=

altitude, etc. physicists 2) modification to contribute ideal conditions

light heat

physiologists

Rain psychologists air room hygiene, etc. etc.

3) Architectural procedures materials space norms environment air volumes architectural mechanisms = procedures, etc.

fig. 1 & 2

Here is one of the works to begin in Colombia in collaboration with others. Here is the mission arising from an architectural workshop, the simple commercial office cannot resolve any of these aspects. In the long run this is a public service office such as electricity, aqueduct and others.

8 Nov 53 on board the Antilles 96

It is important to remember that the climatic grid gauges the participation and relationship of different external variables in an architecture project. In Volume 6 of the Complete Works (1952-1957), Le Corbusier defines the “grille climatique� of the Atelier as a useful graphic support to present, relate and analyze the climate conditions in a place, with the purpose of directing the architectural research to solve appropriate solutions to human biology. It deals with solutions that regulate, rectify, and put order to extreme climate since they define, through architectural mechanisms, the ideal conditions in securing comfort and well-being. The grid is formed of four rows that set up the environmental conditions, crossed by columns that represent time (the months of the year). The conditions or climatic factors (temperature, relative humidity, winds, thermal radiation) that are identified as hindrances to well being must be corrected through architectural procedures and solutions (fig. 3).

fig. 3

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fig. 4

fig. 5

The climatic grid was developed by Xenakis at the beginning of 1952 in the workshop of rue de Sèvres to adjust the accumulated experience regarding various types of housing developed in foreign climatic conditions in Punjab, India. Using the grid, he was able to fit the housing to foreign climatic conditions. It is important to remember that this method deals with research that probably started with a theoretical reflection on houses in series as stated in Le Corbusier’s book Towards a New Architecture, which extends to the reconstruction plans of postwar in France. The climatic grid became a very simple way of comparing changing conditions, and of gauging and translating them into architectural and technical solutions.

Samper’s thoughts, expressed in his comments on the Antilles, gather and reiterate the utility of the grid as an adequate toolbox with which to form a coherent development of thought about an architecture project. The grid serves as a device, a machine at the service of a coordinated and holistic project action that must be put into practice by a multi-disciplinary team whose perspective is the total transformation of the city.

fig. 6

During his apprenticeship in Le Corbusier’s workshop, Samper was in charge of developing housing projects such as Roq et Rob (Cap Martin, 1949) (fig. 4), and Hem Roubaix (1949) (fig. 5), and he participated in the adjustment plan for Bogotá in La Rochelle’s project (1950) (fig. 6) and “ one house, one tree” (1950) (fig. 7). These projects constitute a continuous sequence that goes from single family housing in series under pressing rural or agricultural conditions, to the collective housing and city multi-family housing series, up to the Pilot Plan housing for Bogotá. The sequence outlines the essential aspects of modern housing and examines the different possibilities and alternatives by subduing a formal structure (type) to its transformation.

The sequence was arranged based on the Hem Roubaix project proposal, entirely drawn by Germán Samper and Rogelio Salmona, as the analytic basis on which the logic of the housing project variations is reconstructed. This characteristic is attributable to the Le Corbusier project-thought, root of the lesson learned by Samper.

fig. 7

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fig. 8

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fig. 9

fig. 10

fig. 11

fig. 12

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The project sequence started in Hem Roubaix designed by Le Corbusier as Hs (dwelling type) and its variations: HI(1) Rochelle, HI(2) Rez-deChaussée and HC(1) Appartements Collectifs. Relations with the other projects of the sequence was assumed, including the housing unit types in the plan for Bogotá. Variations are evident in the diversity of shapes, proportions and sizes assumed by the housing units and their successive aggregations; from the juxtaposition of two lots and two housing units, to the compound which defines the urban growing unit, the Sector. Another type of modification refers to the one motivated by the conditions and necessities of a place, or the construction technique available.

fig. 13

duplex apartments finished with the services level. The double-bay circulation recalls the La Rochelle – La Pallice project in which two units confront one another to create an inside street (fig. 12).

The H1 is a two or three level housing unit, with a butterfly or flat roof juxtaposed in two different sizes at the front or by the short rear of the lot through rear gardens. In front of the lots, an interior pedestrian lane was created. The next compound scale is the block delimited by vehicular traffic.

Each block has a free space for community use. The H1 background is the housing unit of the La Rochelle–La Pallice project (1945) and the Temporary Units. An ulterior development is found in “one house, one tree”, the origin of which goes back to the Macià Plan of Barcelona in the 30s, and the Rochelle type, both proposed for the Bogotá Plan (1950) (fig. 9).

Surely, the experience in the systematic exploration of alternatives for spaces (Hs) increased Samper’s interest in a general theme: the townhouse project, developed later in Colombia. The experience also served, to reiterate, to execute a less direct instrumentation with a definite goal to be reached long term: to carry out a systematic investigation, discontinuous in time, that would permit them to acquire the skills for realizing and developing different options for a project. Samper precisely developed the skill for evaluating diverse comparative alternatives in the field of solutions in respect to a subject or problem, independent from a specific work. It is a technique, a way of thinking, the architecture project based on a reasoned selection and with the comparison of options.

From the beginning the H2 is one-level housing with a single space divided by partition walls delineating utilitarian housing spaces. Two support walls confine the structure as the Citrohan house, which supports a flat roof that illuminates the inside. The first version included an enclosed front yard and a back yard. Two variation groups were developed, each with five options for increasing the number of rooms. Each option modified housing width and thus the land. H2 is based on the Murondin housing proposed as provisional housing for the war displaced, and built with materials from its own location. The group of H2 houses is based on linear juxtaposition or in recess up to three levels shapes the Sector. Its evolution included an ample lane planted with trees, accessing a community space (fig. 10).

This technique is evident in the descriptive accounts accompanying the proposals for competitions in which the firm Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper took part and won.

Especially important in these memoirs are the drawings in which the descriptive argumentation is revised and adapted, defining the project and setting a guideline for its completion. About this matter, the authors interviewed Germán Samper in April of 2010, where he mentioned that:

The H3 houses are grouped in recess alcoves, but stacked in height with a distribution characterized by a simple bay of up to 6 floors of duplex houses like this: free first level, two levels with two duplex housing (4 levels) and the last one with a single-family housing level. Collective units are connected in sections allowing the access to an apartment by the higher level and to the other in front of the first by the lower level. The sections shape common spaces as parks, creating a Rochelle-type transformation and at the same time an ulterior evolution in the Sert type house (fig. 11).

Firstly, architecture was taught in the Le Corbusier workshop by making sketches of existing architecture. Secondly, the architecture had to be learned by thinking and writing. Le Corbusier wrote a lot about this subject. I learned that architecture is more than drawings. I observed Le Corbusier fight for his ideals that were not only drawn but written as well. Writing is an intellectual exercise which forces one to summarize, classify and organize ideas… and in competitions, memoirs are important because one has to make the jury conclude that your work is good. In the text I describe the essence of a project.

The H4 is associated to the HC, Appartements Collectifs of Hem Roubaix, grouped vertically in a block. They are apartments in a dense building modeled on the Unités d’ Habitation: A free lower level, a body of double-bay 101

fig. 14a

fig. 14b

fig. 14c

fig. 14d

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fig. 15a

fig. 14e

Written accounts of some awarded projects were revised in Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper. The competitions qualify, as a functional group, in buildings for public and private offices: The Central Mortgage Bank (BCH) (1965, fig. 13) the Avianca building (1968), the Municipal Administration Center o ­f Cali (CAM) (1968, fig. 14 a, b, c, d, e & f) the offices building for the Coltejer Center (1970, fig. 15 a, b, c & d) and the Banco Popular, Medellín branch (1974, fig. 16 a, b, c, & d).

What can be noted when comparing accounts of these different projects is a common structure that reveals a radical consistency among the project’s arguments and decisions, manifested by the careful and systematic examination of the different alternatives relative to the factors involved in the project. This method develops arguments regarding the choice between different architectonic options available and allows the architects to confront the assignment efficiently and quickly. The project options include drawn schemes that characterize every alternative, allowing the evaluation of the different project options and its optimal conditions.

fig. 15b

The judges of the various competitions have to be thankful for the organization and reason underlying the presentation of the variables that come into play, their hierarchy, interaction and integration possibilities; the necessary conditions to be fitted to the customer’s requirements and the expert recommendations that elaborate on the basis of the competition. This provides an understanding of why the chosen alternative was the best among all the choices presented.

The common structure of competition reports can be described as a sequence composed of analytical reasoning and could be called a planning technique that drives the process of thinking architecture from one instance to another, as observed in the climate grid.

First, the rethinking of the program is proposed and recorded on the basis of the competition, the essence of the architectonic problem to be solved is rewritten to reduce the project to its objective conditions. This defines the problem of a project, which is key to understanding the work.

fig. 15d

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fig. 15c

fig. 16a

fig. 16b

Reprocessing through a text poses a question about the project, which anticipates an architectonic answer. Samper does not turn the text into a posteriori project justification, or simply describe it in a determined way; on the contrary, he takes the opportunity to practice project thought, a layout defined by testing different options to confront the problem which subsequently takes shape.

autonomous scales (to define the components of the project, its urban relation, to preview its volumetric aspect, to develop the building’s scale, etc.), for example the project for the Municipal Administration Center of Cali – CAM; or studying and evaluating the diverse options to the problem, as was the case with the competitions for the Avianca building, the Coltejer Center and the Banco Popular, Medellín branch.

It is about interpreting the competition’s basics to find different motivations for the plain formulation of the work in terms of areas, spaces and schematic relations. In the text, the problems to be solved are considered separately: functional, technical, economic and subjective. If the climatic grid is sustained as a paradigm and model, it corresponds to the disaggregation of the climatic conditions and factors about temperature, relative humidity, wind, thermal radiation, etc. As a consequence, an architectural solution is proposed which presents two difficulties for its development: agreeing to an option defined in successive

Second, the architectonic translation of the problem is conducted. This implies choosing an architectural type that responds to the intention of optimizing the starting conditions.

Third, there is an advance in the figurative development of the type in respect to how it confronts the concrete reality of external conditions. This means studying the weather and topography, the urban landscape creation, and how the project approaches space occupation.

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fig. 16c

fig. 16d

The fourth successive step, dominated by Samper himself, is to make the project architectonically definitive. The proposal represents the building by the proper disciplinary means (levels, cuts, façades, perspectives, isometrics). In the cases analyzed, the architectonic solution is shown by its technical solution, its construction and material. The bearing structure expresses the architecture, its aesthetic, and reflects a pure, without excess or defect, rational concretion.

The materials must not be flamboyant, because they reflect the substance, the economy, and “the background decision” (account of the competition for the BCH branch).

In short, the architectural space is revealed by structure, which does not constrain it; it gives the structure, on the contrary, the way to “express the construction elements” (from the text accompanying the proposal for the Pan American Life Insurance building competition).

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fig. 17

the tower and the city is determined by various standards (neighbors, junctures, context, etc.), and the customer’s commercial interest, which come before the dynamics of the project in the city or the city itself. The architectural project is assigned a role, where the role has meaning, to construct an image that projects an institution, public or private.

The structure expresses the reality desired by the project. The affiliation with Le Corbusier is obvious: the technique is the base of the lyricism.

To enlighten the project technique described, a grid was built connecting it with the difficulties of the requirements for the Avianca building; and the relations with other competitions (Coltejer and the Banco Popular, Medellín branch). Each case transformed the common choice: the tower (fig. 17).

The tower, first as a type, then as a formal development, and finally as a symbol, will assume a structural order that is able to create a relation between the architecture and the city, materially and constructively visible. The exposed structure of the tower appears as a message of simplicity, symmetry, slenderness, and of equilibrium to the inhabitants of the city. The scenario throughout which this message is spread is the metropolitan scale.

The Avianca tower is the answer to a given condition: the urban rule, and in particular the construction index prescribed for private property land that is located downtown. Breaking down the tower to its parts or components, the determinants of the architectonic project are revised. The architectonic decisions that affect the urban scale, begin from starting a crisis in the “classic” relation between the tower and the platform, a principal prescribed by the regulations. All the modifications give place to a free tower, modern and vertical to the ground, creating a public space in the area of contact between the building and the city.

It is assumed that the city is benefited, because a new urban silhouette is built, reflecting order (structure, material, construction), which radiates the architecture’s urban environment and also constitutes a symbol. In Medellín it is about the city’s industrial progress in architecture; in Cali, the civic and collective city and in Bogotá, the modern and the metropolis.

The platform-free tower (Coltejer, Avianca) emphasizes two aspects: the building top, which has to comply with the skyline, the urban landscape; and the ground floor that has to house businesses. The existent city activity that the tower has at its base becomes common; the building provides commercial areas, arcades and movie theaters to mitigate its impact at ground level.

To summarize, the projects are proposed as determinant elements to develop lands in consolidated areas of existing cities. They are about high buildings and towers intended to increase and make the urban land use more efficient. The competition prescription suggests that the architecture project will create a new relation with the city, meaning that it recognizes what already exists, and priority of the tower. A tower noted not because it is determined by the orientation convenient for the building, but because it is suitable for the city, so the building is isotropic.

The linking block with the neighboring land is also modified. The volume is recovered in height for the tower, increasing its size, and spatial occupancy from the ground becomes more efficient. The relation between 106

fig. 17

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Finally, we return to the initial topic: the written accounts for competitions in which Germán Samper took part with the firm ESYS. These texts are the central part of the design process. They are a record of the proper architectural principals, repeated and channeled by Samper himself.

Two component elements need to be emphasized. On one hand, the illustrated architectural procedure confronts conditions equal to those you can have in an architecture competition. The way to proceed can be applied to a project technique, allowing the architect to confront a specific complex request. Germán Samper contributed to the advance of architectural thought by regarding the architectural project technique in a competitive situation. He was able to assimilate univocal and coded answers, which, at the same time, provide knowledge about the architectural project, its technique, and its method of construction for the creation of places to satisfy the people who would occupy the building.

The texts also reveal the principal transformations of the architectural project and the thought supporting and justifying it, identified with Le Corbusier, when it is built according to the logic of an existing city in our environment.

For our understanding, the example below constitutes an inflection of the project thought by Germán Samper: The International PREVI Competition, planned by the United Nations for Lima (1969). It was an offer to experiment with low cost housing solutions, which meant to the architect “A chance to find new paths in the field of grouping high density individual housing.” ESYS competed with international architectural firms that had experience with “non conventional” solutions for self-build housing and progressive growth for popular sectors. This chance allowed the firm to adapt the instruments used successfully in institutional and commercial programs in a housing sector.

Due to the disposition of the project logic used in previous competitions, in the PREVI competition the univocal architectonic answer becomes important. Tools acquired by in-line housing projects in the Le Corbusier workshop, adapted empirically in Colombia (For example by the Central Mortgage Bank), were used in the PREVI competition, although it attempted to define the architecture project as high density individual housing and its scalar components. The formation of residential groups adapted to the urban structure and economy was intended to establish an “alternative for Latin America.” fig. 18

A direct application of the project technique taught by Samper is also included in a composition course. Samper’s exercise, the disposition of the stages for an architectonic project to be transmitted and taught has a convincing base: The drawing is a means not a purpose. The architect’s problem to communicate ideas has two stages: a. Explaining general ideas to the non-specialist; b. Information for the constructor (…) the architect has to use all methods at hand to explain his ideas: the word, the drawing to scale (two dimensions), the hand drawing (three dimensions) and schemes. Drawings must be expressive. A graphic method to represent all the factors having influence on the development of a project must have (…) to graphically set the problem out (everything is understood in a better way by watching it than writing it). (fig. 18a & b)

fig. 19

*** 108

The planning process for high-density single-family housing quickly became committed to a solution for the existing dwelling, still unresolved by the individual home or for multi-height homes, causing low densities or overdensification of the sprawl of the city size, the high development costs and transportation, etc.

The house-grouping solution created a proper collective space of groupings that had to function through urban space (the urban ground, critical evolution of the Le Corbusier idea of the Sector), with the difference that the community assumed control and maintenance. A pattern of soil joint ownership was shaped and it was regulated in Agreement 82 of 1967 for the Special District of Bogotá and the Minimum Urban Planning Rules. When it was implemented in La Alhambra (fig. 19) its urban figure caused many controversies because it allowed private enclosure for security, subtracting large areas of public land and preventing free circulation of pedestrians and traffic.

About the architectonic project as subject, or as principle, the formulation changed to a complex “system” with an economic base, housing, being its new role as the main component of the integral planning and development of the country.

As a consequence the role of the project formulation was palpable in the creation of an abstract urban pattern. “Alternate networks” acquire meaning in the sense that they can be reproduced in any circumstance, condition or place.

“Alternate networks” consolidated an urban structure supported by a direct critic to the “CIAM revolution” which only handled exempt and independent volumes.

The challenge was to recover the inherited urban space from the medieval city to justify a new version of the Sector, lowering specifications of a good number of walkways, separating cars from pedestrians with a security patrolled parking area and maybe the most interesting part, using the square lot and the patio house as aggregation units.

At the same time, it was about applying a more instrumental reasoning, steering away from the architectural project’s own logic. This becomes evident in the economical analysis of the winning proposal, in 1981, for the multi-family complex José María Carbonell of the Military Housing Fund (fig.

20). The reality determined, conditioned, and replaced the logic of the architectural project with a diagnosis that could only find backing with financing systems (i.e. the UPAC), institutions for which housing is, above all, a highly profitable merchandise for the enlarged reproduction of the economic cycle.

fig. 20

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Administrative Centre for the Municipality of Cali Esguerra, SĂĄenz and Samper In company of Ricaurte, Carrizosa and Prieto Structural engineer: Roberto Caicedo Douat Cali, Colombia, 1968 First place in competition Client: Municipality of Cali Scope of work: Planning Area: 473.610 sq.ft.

In a public competition in 1968, the contract was awarded for The Administrative Centre for the Municipality of Cali. The project proposed to shape a civic space that brings together citizens and principal municipal bodies. In order to achieve this, the project proposed three buildings that accommodate, represent, and symbolize, respectively, the different departments that compose the Town Hall, the Council, and the Municipal Enterprises. It also offered to have a higher influx of the public into each of the different departments located on the first floor, and the integration of a nearby natural park.

The lot is located downtown, neighboring a beautiful park and the Cali river; decisive natural surroundings that the proposal incorporated into the complex. In this cluster of public buildings, the exterior surroundings play a determining role. It provides an equilibrium between that which is manmade, and open space.

The premise of the project was to usher in the design of two sister towers, equal in height and appearance, but of different shape. One tower is squared and the other, elongated. The two are joined by bridges and also share a crosscut top, and house, respectively, the Town Hall’s offices and those of the Municipal Enterprises. Both face a square that is partially embraced by a larger but shorter building, which houses the Municipal Council. Inside of this building a beautiful hall for plenary sessions stands out, which is also utilized for community activities. In the centre, there is a large wooden suspended ceiling, with a skylight through which zenithal light enters.

All buildings in this project are characterized by their design and utilization of space, allowing flexibility and the possibility of customizations over time. Two predominant materials visually unify the complex, that of exposed concrete and the cladding of white stone. The façades are endowed with concrete brise-soleil, which cast shadowy patterns for protection from the strong Cali sun.

A moderna plaza. The force of the design is centered on the creation of a public space.

Coltejer Building Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper In company of Fajardo, Vélez and Jorge Manjarrez Medellín, Colombia, 1970 First place in competition Client: Coltejer Scope of work: Planning Area: 376.730 sq.ft.

The Coltejer Building was conceived to be the enterprise’s headquarters as well as a symbol of the entrepreneurial capacity of Medellín; not to mention that it was also an investment in real estate. These three goals brought the firm, along with architects Fajardo, Vélez and Jorge Manjarrez, a win in the private competition to develop the tower.

The building, which is located downtown, gives shape to a corner that lies between a pedestrian road and a tree-lined vehicular artery. The project consisted of a dynamic commercial building, low in height, governed by means of internal passages that interconnect the peripheral passageways to different levels and generate high pedestrian traffic. The shorter building, similar to a platform, envelops a tower that sectionally decreases, which stands out due to its orderly contour against the heterogeneous panorama of Medellín.

a

The volume’s decreasing section responds to structural requirements and procures economical construction while the open plan responds to functional demand. The system has a central nucleus that houses the mechanical and circulatory systems inside; these are complemented by a successive pattern of slender peripheral columns, arranged in rigorous symmetry, that strengthen and thicken towards the ground like a tunic, and answer to the principals of stability in terms of economics and honesty in construction.

The top of the tower was given special attention. It had to complement and finalize the design of a decreasing ascension tower that is of exposed concrete and that has two bold twin needles that clasp like joined hands towards the sky. The pinnacle of The Coltejer Tower contrasts the evident disregard for the other building’s tops, which are mainly employed to house machine rooms, water tanks, cylinder heads, signs and antennas. The skylines of Colombian cities are sadly composed of unremarkable building tops.

The volumetric capacity of The Coltejer Tower has become, over time, not only the logo of the company, but a symbol within the city.

b Location

Western faรงade

Southern faรงade

Floor plans

First floor section and plan

Lower floors section

Mazuera Tower Esguerra, Sáenz y Samper In company of Pizano, Pradilla and Caro Structural engineer: Doménico Parma Bogotá, Colombia,1971 Client: Fernando Mazuera and Cía.

Scope of work: Planning (unbuilt) Area: 646.000 sq.ft.

Commissioned by owner Fernando Mazuera, the tower was designed for 60 stories located at the International Center, based on an urban renovation design drafted by the firm Esguerra, Sáenz y Samper.

Although technical studies and architectural diagrams were completed, it was never built.

The esthetic result of the tower is a volume of great formal perfection, elegant and above all the result of construction technology. The starting point was symmetry, regarded as an indispensable requirement to resolve seismic resistance issues. The external, variable-section columns are wide at the base and thin out gradually as the building rises, keeping the volume unchanged over its entire length. The external volume, covered in a diagonal pre-stressed concrete weave, gives great rigidity to the entire perimeter of the façade.

The ground floor, which is open, highlights the elevators core at the center. The lower platform was designed for services and businesses. An external battery of negative elevators was designed for the helix-shaped parking basements. The upper elevators system was conceived as a sky-lobby, whereby the building is divided into two sections, with fast elevators reaching its middle height and users then boarding the other group of elevators to the upper section.

To the innovations required by construction of this skyscraper, such as the mainly structural, diagonal-shaped façade following a basket weave, was added a novel idea for the foundations: using conventional techniques, the high water table called for pumping water during construction of the caissons of the main columns, 5 basements deep. This implied the serious problem of drying the ground and consequently affecting neighboring buildings. Soil engineer Antonio Páez proposed using an oil-drilling technique consisting of freezing the caissons area with frozen tubes to be able to work in dry conditions without affecting the water table. Had it been erected, as the tallest office tower in South America this building would have no doubt become a symbol of Bogotá and of the Colombian architecture of those years.

Convention Centre of Cartagena Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper In company of Eduardo Samper, Carlos Hernández and Fernando Erazo Structural engineers: Doménico Parma and Hernán Sandoval Cartagena, Colombia, 1982 First place in competition Client: Proexpo, Bank of the Republic Scope of work: Planning Area: 238.330 sq.ft.

Cloister canopy: GX Samper Arquitectos, 2004 Structural engineer: Luis Guillermo Aycardi Located in the heart of the colonial city of Cartagena, facing the ocean and old walled section, stands the Convention Centre. It is a building that answered to an intricate urban context and to an ambitious program that demanded the creation of an acclimatized internal space. The building is imbued with all the services and technologies necessary to accommodate high profile congregations.

In response to context, the building was projected to line a corner on an L shaped lot. A grand meeting hall and a 1500 capacity auditorium occupy the lateral wings as the main function of the building, whilst a cloister serves as the rotational element of the figure. The complex emulated the distribution of old colonial cloisters, seeking a prismatic, somber and austere magnitude that would reduce the impact of its monumentality. The façade walls maintain a relationship between emptiness and fullness, resembling colonial architecture with porches that lighten the surroundings in combination with arches and vaults, evoking the historic centre. A coral stone veneer, also used on neighboring ramparts, lines the building, saving the historical distance that separates it from the older buildings of Cartagena.

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Site plan, competition project

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The plaza facing Centenario Park, the promenade in front of Las ﾃ］imas bay and the tree-lined walkway to the Bay of Cartagena were conceived as public spaces open to citizens. A public building on the first floor, it is private on the second. Strict notions of security isolated these spaces in an enclosure. One does not understand why they are not open to the public when events are not being held.

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Contrary to the initial intentions, some key propositions for the integration of the Convention Centre with the city were refused, thus making the project appear to be an isolated monument.

Built in 1982, the Convention Centre has functioned without interruption. Unfortunately, having to conform to the criterion of different administrations, it has suffered modifications and material deterioration. In 2004 G.X. Samper Architects put forth a consultation for the realization of maintenance, and adjustments that allowed the building to return to its original state. Complementary to this consultation, a cover for the interior patio was designed. It was originally open and contained trees, like those of the convent cloisters of Cartagena. Having a cover, the patio would be of greater use for the Centre. The proposed cover mimics a grand inverted umbrella, with a structure independent from the existent building.

20 years later

Banco de la República, Barranquilla Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Structural engineer: Hernán Sandoval Barranquilla, Colombia, 1984 Client: Banco de la República Scope of work: Planning Area: 215.000 sq.ft.

The Barranquilla headquarters of the Central Bank occupies a full city block at the intersection of two main city roads. The compound includes open parking areas, public circulation areas, a low rising rectangular platform and a slender tower projected longitudinally in the east-west direction.

The low rising building holds a large open nave with a free floor plan designed for customer service, where the wooden, sculpture-like ceiling and the securities exchange and storage facilities with high levels of security stand out. The upper level of the platform has inner patios that provide natural light to adjacent spaces and visual recreation for employees.

The tower adjacent to the platform stands out on the outside for its two diagonal culmination points, which make for a dynamic volume and provide direct views and circulation inside. Administrative offices are distributed in a single space between supporting walls, aligned on the north side. These spaces offer distant views of the mouth of the Magdalena River. In contrast with the north side, all other sides are largely closed for security reasons and to protect from the sun. Nevertheless these sides have small bay windows projecting slightly over the original volume. There is a separate access for each building and both tower and platform offer passersby refuge from sun and rain in the covered galleries on the first floor.

In terms of inner spaces, the great diversity of covers stand out, as well as the rich language used to shape doors and windows. On the outside, the entire complex has an even layer of bush-hammered marble cladding in a white tone, appropriate for hot climates. The regular use of a single, sober and luminous material provides an appropriate frame for the elaborate volumetric development and expressive treatment of its various vanes.

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Banco de Occidente Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Structural engineer: Doménico Parma Bogotá, Colombia, 1982 First place in competition Client: Banco de Occidente Scope of work: Planning Banco de Occidente is located on the west side of the International Center, in the same plot where, years earlier, the firm designed the Mazuera building. With the sale of the plot to Luis Carlos Sarmiento a contest ensued between Obregón and Valenzuela and Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper. In this contest the building was to follow very specific parameters due to profit-making requirements, such as a large ground floor plan with two elevator batteries and a tower of 30 stories.

The existing building consists of a tower with a rectangular floor plan resting on a platform. The first floor holds two large retail spaces, the main access area and is the starting point for the two vertical fixed points. The building maintains relations of solidarity and harmony with its neighbor, which was originally conceived by Hans Drews as the headquarters of the Colombian merchant fleet.

Banco de Occidente is a very good building in terms of generating profits, with very interesting technical and formal resolutions. The east and west façades use an ingenious sunscreen and ventilation system that adds depth to the volume and drops windows down in clean, narrow vertical bands. A wide portal was proposed on the carrera 13 side, which leads to the interior of the office spaces, while on the opposite side the platform disappears. The tower is interrupted on the first floor, and only four columns maintain a clean and direct relationship with the quiet adjacent plaza.

Forms are clean, but discreet corner breaks make the volumes seem light. The façade materials, white marble in the lower floors and precast concrete in the tower, contribute to the same goal.

A traveler is a person of deep roots

S

The Clock’s Pendulum

ince his youth, Germán Samper has maintained the same interests.

It took a long journey to the other side of the world for Germán to reencounter the origins of his preoccupations.

A Journey to Paris and its surroundings through the drawings of Germán Samper

Subsequent to growing up in a house in downtown Bogotá, Samper spent his youth in a neighborhood called Avenida de Chile1 where he lived in a British-style house with a sloped roof (fig.1), a roof that fixed itself in his mind and that he would reencounter at every step along his journey. The place where an individual grows up can become a major determining factor in the development of his or her personality and future vision. The Tudor style house, constructed in Bogotá’s way, could have had the same impact for Germán Samper, as the Teusaquillo neighborhood house with a front yard had for Rogelio Salmona.

Ricardo Daza

Samper started drawing in Paris (fig. 2), and, as he himself has pointed out, was motivated by his encounter with Le Corbusier. For the Swiss architect, the journey and the art of drawing were his primary teachers. They allowed him to escape the authority of the classroom and learn to consciously block out the canonical rules and codified principles dictated by academia. The journey, for him, was an encounter in the flesh with architecture in face of the sickness that emanated from the grand schools with their epicenter in L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where very little of the classic world style was taught.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Le Corbusier understood that it was important to contribute to the downfall of the doctrinal and perverse legacy of Napoleonic classicism. That being said, what could be better than to travel and to draw in order to have la tête et nez au vent, and to know and observe the world, free from prejudice.2 What significance does drawing have to Germán Samper? What is the most relevant subject of his preoccupations? How did he portray and extract lessons from the cities he visited? How did he distance himself from his mentor?

To answer these questions we should complete an overview of the Colombian architect’s drawings of the City of Light and its surroundings.

fig. 2: Germán Samper in París, at the time he was working with Le Corbusier.

1 With concrete memories, the truth is, I have lived in two houses. My parents’, English in style, built by Casanovas and Manheim, two Chilean architects that paradoxically brought the English style to Bogotá. The Tudor style was adopted by the city and provided several neighborhoods with character. Germán Samper, La evolución de la vivienda, Ed. Escala, Bogotá, 2003, p. 234.

2 Le Corbusier, Le Modulor, Éditions de l’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, Boulogne, 1950, p. 29.

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mined moment and isolate it from another, but does not allow the drafting of building plans, the taking of measurements, making cuts, drawing details, writing observations; the camera is not a sufficient instrument for learning to see, feel, and capture the spatial experience.

Over the years, Germán Samper’s stance on the photographic camera has changed very little. During his visit to Spain in the 70s (a country that was a ‘school of life’ for the Colombian8), in the small city of Carmona, the architect gave his opinion on the camera, this time to a Colombian friend:

fig. 1: Germán Samper parents’ house in Avenida de Chile. Sketch n° 1156.

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We only had one morning. My companion, armed with excellent photographic equipment, expressed his surprise. In such a short stay, I would not have time to draw and the camera would be the only possible medium, because of its speed, to record our visit. I suggested that we await the outcome of the day (…) With my pen and paper I was able to capture impressions by making quick drawings of plants, exteriors, and internal patios, of what must be its urban structure and its architecture. At the end of the day I had something to show. I had learned various lessons and was able to transmit them. My colleague did not and could not press his shutter. He understood that in some cases drawing is ahead of the modern photographic camera, an indispensable instrument nowadays in capturing urban and architectonic environments, but one that requires special external conditions.9

In 1948, on the eve of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Germán Samper arrived in Paris at the age of 24, and remained there until 1954. This was the year that Auguste Perret died, and a new business sector, La Defense, began to take form in the western part of the city.

Upon his arrival, Germán declared a preference for drawing and displayed a mistrust of photography.

It was in December of that year when I went to the south of France for the first time. I took on the burdensome task of thinking along the way. I took a camera with me and clicked away with great emotion, heedlessly using many rolls of film. A vague memory of the pictures I took remains with me. I also took a small notebook of graph paper in which I recorded a few timid notes, which I still have. It is the only thing that I still have from that trip. Today I certainly value them, considering it was the beginning of what I call my architectonic melomania, or my tectomania.3

While photography requires special external conditions, drawing may be done anywhere, under any circumstances. It is sufficient to have stamina and courage when facing the vagaries of the day. It is evident that throughout his life drawing would be the true instrument of learning for the Colombian architect.

Motivated by Le Corbusier himself, who did take photographs,4 but who consciously encouraged his pupils to draw as opposed to taking photographs, he understood that to draw is primarily to look with the eyes, to observe, to discover… it is to learn to see, to see objects and people5 being born, growing, expanding, and dying: whereas photography is a true technical revolution that inevitably is out of the hand of the participant6 who merely activates the shutter of the device.

But what was it that Germán Samper wanted to seek and to express with his travel sketches?

In drawing, as pointed out by the Catalan Professor Manuel Baquero i Briz: beyond its immediate utility, there beats a pulse in the search for meaning that answers to the necessity of solving any vital question: the pursuit of beauty, the appreciation of the everyday, the search for a utopia, the nostalgia for the past, the passion for truth, the pride in virtuosity and natural gifts, the faith in scientific principles, the belief in objectivity, the respect for humanistic rhetoric, the recognition of mentors, among other things.10

So, at the hand of his mentor, drawing would become for Germán Samper the most reliable medium for studying and learning from architecture: …Le Corbusier advised me to leave the camera in Paris, he also encouraged Rogelio Salmona and I to draw everything that appeared interesting to us. To draft plans, take measurements, make cuts, draw details, and note observations. In synthesis, to turn an architectonic visit into a fountain of study. To ‘learn to see, feel, and capture the spatial experience’.7

It was 1949 when Samper began to draw on a regular basis. One of his first sketches, maybe the first, corresponds to the interior of a kitchen in Paris.

While on a short visit to the south of France, he penciled in some drawings of the city of Carcassonne. Further on he outlined a slightly jumpy view of the boundary between the town and the countryside, a theme that would recur and shape his subsequent drawings.11 Back in Paris, Samper visited a museum and entertained himself by drawing the paintings and ceramics of Picasso, the

This holds true in understanding that drawing exemplifies all that photography can never become. Photography allows the user to frame a deter3 Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, Ed. Escala, Bogotá, 1986, p. 9.

4 It is commonplace to hear that Le Corbusier was not interested in photography, a mistaken opinion. During his mythical trip to the East, at 23 years of age, he took around 500 pictures. Vers une architecture concretely demonstrates the Swiss architect’s equal interest in both mediums.

5 And continues: One must draw in order to interiorize what has been seen, then it will be inscribed in our memory for the rest of our lives. From: Escola Tècnica superior d’arquitectura de Barcelona, Homenatge al catedràtic Manuel Baquero i Briz amb motiu del seu comiat com a profesor, UPC, 21 de maig de 1999, p. 14.

6 I waited for 60 years before I could determine the stationary point from which knowledge and fondness for art extended. It was marked by the inventor of the cliché interwoven símili, who promoted the direct and integral practice of photography; i.e. the automatic utilization, without using the hand, a real revolution! Le Corbusier, El viaje de Oriente, Ed. Colegio Oficial de Aparejadores y Arquitectos Técnicos de Madrid, 1984, p. 123.

7 Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, op.cit., p. 9

8 The same goes for Rogelio Salmona. The trip for both Colombians to southern Europe was perhaps one of the first manifestations of displeasure (unconscious on behalf of one – conscious on behalf of the other), against the grain of the already built-in perspective of Le Corbusier, who revealed certain interest for Spain much later. At the beginning of the 20th century, like many young Europeans educated high in the Pyrenees, Le Corbusier preferred to look in the other direction, away from Spain.

9 Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, op.cit., p. 181.

10 Escola Técnica superior d’arquitectura de Barcelona, Homenatge al catedràtic Manuel Bauqero i Briz amb motiu del seu comiat com a profesor, UPC, 21 de maig de 1999, p. 13.

11 In the summer of 1949, following an itinerary proposed by Le Corbusier, Samper toured through Bergamo, Vicenza, Padua, Venice, Ravena, Florence, Pisa, Siena, Arezo, Perugia, Assisi, and Orvieto. The drawings of these cities show special attention to urban matters.

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talented and irreverent artist from Málaga, adopted by the French. Finally his attention was called to a modern domed building that emerged from behind a parapet in the city.

upon his arrival in the city, and where he also most likely awaited the opportunity to work with Le Corbusier. While visiting the apartment of the Swiss architect, at 24 Nungesser-et-Coli, the stairs that led to the terrace took him by surprise. Referring to a book, he reproduced an apartment of the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, a building that he would carefully study and meticulously draw between 1950 and 1953.

According to the architect himself, his first drawings were done in small notebooks with shy, slightly clumsy lines. Nevertheless, it is probable that the nervousness of the initial sketches was not due to any lack of skill, but more along the lines of a juvenile fear of embarking on an epic journey.

The former capital city of the 19th century was an unknown city, waiting to be discovered by the young Samper.

Later, he completed a pair of sketches of the room where he stayed at the City Hotel on D’Auphine Square. He also drew the symphony concert hall Peyel on Faubourg Saint-Honoré Street, and the St. Genevieve library where Le Corbusier spent many hours studying while he worked with Auguste Perret. He also drew the interior of the workshop of his future employer on rue de Sèvres; the colorful mural background impressed him. He made short trips to the outskirts of the city, visited and made several drawings of the town of Stein en Garches, and of course went to Poissy, where he stopped at a restaurant to catch his breath before sketching the nearly insurmountable town of Savoye (fig.3). He had sketched it more than 15 times and stayed to study and sketch it further.

To draw is to take control of the world through a particular way of looking, where the hand, the eye, and the observed unite.12 The blank sheet is the litmus paper, which serves to register the pH of the sketcher.

With time Samper’s sketches became more meticulous and frequent.

Little by little, drawing would become a true fuel for the architect. He would first sketch in pencil, then in either a hotel or restaurant or at home, would subsequently trace over the initial lines with a pen. This particularity cannot be left unsaid. It demonstrates that, on one hand, Samper would not resign himself to the original sketch, he would not sketch what was fleeting, random, or elusive, and on the other hand, he would let some time pass between the first sketch and the last in order to meditate on that which was observed.

His initial sketches of Paris and its surroundings are a reflection of the first encounter of the young architect with a new city. The hotel, the restaurant, the strolls on the riverbanks, the concerts, exhibits, monuments, and of course, a first review of some of Le Corbusier’s work, were the principal motivations for his stay.

One cannot help but imagine Germán Samper back in the hotel with the image of the drawn object, floating and being fine-tuned in his mind.

After visiting the suburban projects of the Swiss architect, Samper drew the Place des Vosges (fig.4), and the interior of the Mauberf Theatre.

He went on to draw a few metro stations, noticing their seating and the contrast between the underground ones and those at street-level. It was an entirely new urban transportation system for a young man who had lived in the Bogotá of streetcars. The wish to offer a solution between vehicle and pedestrian traffic systems would become a stipulation that Samper would note not only in Le Corbusier’s workshop. In his urban proposals, he would finally opt for the development of clusters of housing encircling communal spaces, enclosures or refuges, -for pedestrians - away from the infernal noise of automobiles.

Producing a fair copy of the first sketch does not indicate that the draftsman will produce a more precious or virtuous result, nor does it demonstrate an inherited natural gift. By erasing errors, fixing inclinations, improving perspective, and completing the rhythms of fenestration, a more reliable and precise document was produced. It also would provide further depth to that which is temporarily restricted, hence his resistance to the immediacy of photography. It is this assessment that has paved the homogeneity and coherence of his drawings, beginning with his very first drawing in Paris up until his current drawings. Because Germán is constantly drawing, he is ever in a state of readiness to travel.

In fact, if you look at two drawings side by side, they maintain certain identities; they appear similar and they express what Samper is all about. If you could spread all of Germán’s drawings out in plain view, the technique has not changed (although it has become slightly more refined over the years); you would see just how diverse the architectures and subjects that he chose along his journeys are. It is absolutely obvious why Samper keeps his sketches as a treasure and guards them meticulously, considering that they are the most trusted records of his work, a reflection of his searches and of his own life. Losing a sketch would be like tearing a page from the diary of someone who is engaged and dedicated to the study of what it is to be alive.

Samper continued to draw Paris until June of 1949. Amongst many others, he drew Notre-Dame Cathedral, encompassing all of its faces, every bank of the Seine with its many bridges, Harmony Square, the trees on Saint Louis Island, and the restaurant which perhaps he frequented. He drew the attic of the Welcome Hotel on the Saint Germain Boulevard, where he stayed 12 Drawing is an activity in which the eyes, the hand, the sight, and the tactile join together. Not one of our senses is an independent channel, autonomous, but rather all together they form an integrated system. Josep Quetglas, “Respiración de la mirada”, Artículos de ocasión, Ed. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2004, p. 178.

fig. 3: Villa Savoye. Plan and axonometric view. Sketch nº 0220.

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fig. 4: Place des Vosgues seen from above. Sketch nº 230.

fig. 5: Section and views of the Eiffel Tower, from Chaillot palace. Sketch nº 0247, 0248.

A first trip is simply to compare where one has lived with the experience of a new and intense place. This encounter puts in perspective the places and values of what has been lived. Arriving in a new city can define the shape of a biography.

In Paris, Samper drew Le Palais des Sports, making trial regulating strokes in his notebook, most likely following the guidelines put forth by Vers une Architecture, a book that caused fervor in Latin American youth, and that nowadays goes unnoticed by students and architects. Samper also drew the bridges that cross the île-de-France and the Pont Neuf, one of the longest and paradoxically oldest bridges in Paris. After this excursion he returned to Notre-Dame, but this time he observed it from the Seine. He also visited the d’Arts Menagers exhibit at Le Grand Palais. Small sketches were made to mark these events. He then drew the imposing architectonic complex of the Hôtel National des Invalides with its slender dome, and finally made his way to the Eiffel Tower: I fully enjoyed it for four years, as much when seeing it from afar under a radiant sun or dressed in clouds, as when I strolled under its great arches, whose scale made the space feel superhuman; marking the end of the last century with the creation of an engineer.13 Samper would draw the Eiffel Tower on every trip he made to Paris throughout his life. Along with Notre-Dame, it would be a beacon to which he turned in his thoughts during his strolls around the City of Light.

Amongst the drawings of 1949, Samper captured the Eiffel Tower from Chaillot Palace, located in Trocadero Square, district XVI, which is elevated and offers advantageous views of the city (figs.5 and 6). In Samper’s sketch, the tower is integrated into the basic plane of the city, but rises with a singular mechanical and innate force, as if wanting to conquer the Parisian sky. Undoubtedly, above all the other monuments in Paris (even Notre-Dame), the energy of the tower made profound impressions on the architect.

13

fig. 6: Comments of the Tower from Chaillot palace.

Sketches nº 0249, 0250.

Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 9.

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figs. 7 to 9: Eiffel Tower, 1951. Sketch nº 0987, 0988, 0989.

Two years later, in September of 1951, the young man returned explicitly to draw it a second time (figs.7 to 9). He captured it closely, showing it robust, energetic, dominant, reflected in the waters of the Seine; and he framed it in friendly dialogue with the metallic bridges and the metro stations.

From 1948 to 1954, surrender to the spirit of Le Corbusier was outright, and it prevented me from appreciating, as if it would be an infidelity, everything that evoked the Academy. Nevertheless, I did not stop admiring the urban aspects of Paris, which over time I have come to understand in their true magnitude.15

It was perhaps the Iron Lady of Paris, in its surroundings, that stood as the work that impressed me the most. It is a work of engineering and also of architecture. I never thought of the “art nouveau” lace-like patterns as superfluous, because they added to the essential elements of the structure. They corresponded to the vanguard movement initiated in Belgium and created a harmony with the structure of Saint Genevieve and the metro entrances scattered throughout the city; in the same era, cultural events were announced on cylindrical billboards and parks were filled with music kiosks. Anyone who has tried to draw the tower’s silhouette appreciates the beauty of its proportions from every view. The harmony of its grand arches culminate in a bridge that finishes off the first section,, from there four pillars are born which narrowing elegantly to conclude in the top platform. It is a silhouette that is symbolic of the city, and a unique piece of art.14

So, at the same time as Samper was drawing and directly observing the gestation and maturation of modern architecture through his mentor, he was also furtively drawing the characteristics of that monumental and academic Paris that he also wanted to observe during those six years when he was religiously attending the workshop on rue de Sèvres.

His drawings of Paris, completed around September of 1951, also allow us to see that the architect was beginning to move away from the simple and autonomous vision of the great monuments, in order to begin to understand urban relations on a larger scale, appreciating the major axes of composition that govern and determine the urban plan of Paris (fig.10).

The most notable of them was designed by a gardener.16 It is surprising how the axis defined for the Tuileries garden, in front of the palace of same name, influenced over time the configuration of the complex Louvre-Touleries-Concordia-Champs Elysee-Arc de Triomphe, and even reached the new district, La Defense, (an unpleasant complex of skyscrapers in modern Paris). Other monumental complexes linked by an axis of composition are: The Bourbon Palace, Concordia-La Madeleine.

The Small and Great Palace, Les Invalides, Chaillot Palace, Eiffel Tower, Champ de Mars, Ecole Militaire.17

With its immutable presence, the Eiffel Tower will be the witness to the transformation of Paris and the spectator of the paradox that Germán Samper would have to face throughout his life.

There is a paradox that can be noticed throughout his trajectory as a draftsman (also as an architect and city planner). His drawings from the late 40s and early 50s reveal that the architect was torn between an appreciation for the work of Le Corbusier, (who will continue to be present throughout his life, and who was the greatest representative of L’Espirit Nouveau), and an appreciation for the great monuments and urban spaces of Paris, which, in a sense represented the academic spirit of tradition. It was a difficult balance for the young architect, who was coming face to face with the zenith of modernity and the sunset of the City of Light.

14

15 Ibidem., p. 44.

16 Le Corbusier was also surprised by the prestigious gardener: “Le Nôtre, once he cut the groves, predominant in the west of the Tuileries, a wide and wooded avenue up to the top of the hill, brought to the world the future Champs Elysées, glory of Paris, a unique circulation avenue that provides actual services (the engraving from the 18th century that shows this opening in the middle of the forest is poignant; one could say that such are the fruits of inventiveness and foresight). The plans of the 18th century reveal themselves as great organizers. Le Corbusier, La ciudad del futuro, Ed. Infinito, Buenos Aires, 2001, p. 164. Original title: Urbanisme. Primera edición 1924. (It is not explained why in the Castillan editions of this publishing house the original titles of Le Corbusier’s books are changed).

17 Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 44.

Ibid.

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Figure 11 shows the way in which Samper located himself in the urban enclosure (drawing the Louvre foreshortened), as a means to appreciate the axis that establishes and governs the monumental complex. In fact, a few months earlier, in May of the same year, he visited the city of Nancy and again focused his attention on the great compositional axis that unites the baroque city and the medieval city, combining two crucial periods in the history of the old capital of Duchy de Loren (figs. 12 and 13).

The Stanislas de Nancy Plaza lies perpendicular to the regional axis line where it joins the old medieval city with the new in a masterly succession of spaces. The complex originates from a large square plaza, with barred corners, and continues down a narrowing that ends in a triumphant arch. It then continues to a longer plaza with trees in the center and lateral rows of domestic buildings in military formation; it culminates in a plaza formed by half moon arches (almost like those in St. Peter’s Square in Rome), which embrace a Renaissance palace with a French garden on the opposite side. The complex discretely links the medieval square to its corresponding church.18

fig. 10: París monumental axes. Sketch nº 0985.

It should be noted that over these same years, Samper briefly left Paris and embarked on a series of journeys to Italy and several French cities, in search of medieval spaces and gothic architecture,19 from which he extracted numerous lessons: The Gothic encompasses two themes. It extends over Europe, it becomes enriched, stylized, repeated, and it adapts itself to the temperament of whichever town embraces it. It was an urban architecture; it embedded itself as a skyscraper between domestic buildings, squeezed against them. The silhouette dominated the landscape, as Christianity dominated the culture. The Gothic builders were masters of internal space, of structural equilibrium, and of polychromatic light.20 The Baroque and Middle Age would be, without doubt, determinants in the formation of the Colombian architect’s career, countering the spaciousness indefinite, diffuse, foggy, and nebulous21, of his mentor’s urban plans. In contrast, in his youth Le Corbusier had distanced himself from medieval architecture, because he considered it tight, rough, pointy, barbaric, and of overflowing sentimentality:

fig. 11: The Louvre. Sketch nº 0986

The Gothic period in regards to architecture can be compared to that of the feather that sits on a woman’s head, where sometimes it is wonderful, but can be overdone; architecture has a more serious destination.22 In opposition to the Middle Ages, Le Corbusier fixed his attention on Greek classicism, in particular on Rome and the Cartesian order of the outskirt Latin cities Hadrian’s Villa and Pompeii: We prefer Bach to Wagner and the spirit of the Parthenon to that of the Cathedral.23 On a trip that went against the grain of their mentor, Germán Samper and Rogelio Salmona found the medieval city to be a source of learning; sloped streets that led to central monuments, surprises, fortuitous encounters, mysteries of convoluted streets, fenced squares, walled cities… a series of resources that would be reflected in their subsequent projects. In this regard Samper states: 18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 33.

21 Germán Samper, Recinto urbano. La humanización de la ciudad, cit., p.61.

22 Le Corbusier, Hacia una arquitectura, Ed. Apóstrofe, Barcelona, 1977, p. 15. The Swiss architect points out his opinion regarding the Middle Ages in almost all his books, however it is in Urbanisme where he states his position in a clear and distinctive manner.

23 Le Corbusier, La ciudad del futuro, cit., p. 40. Original title: Urbanisme. Primera edición 1924.

figs. 12 and 13: Place Stanislas and Nancy monumental axes.

Sketches nº 0983 and nº 0984.

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fig. 14: Swiss Pavilion. City University. Croquis nº 0990.

Years later, these memories will have meaning, when the medieval space would, for me, be a source of inspiration for the humanization of the city in terms of residential sectors of the modern city.24

During his stay in Paris, the architect lived in the contradiction between the airy architecture of Le Corbusier and that of the consolidated architecture of the traditional city. To give another example of this duality, in August of 1951, Samper took a trip to England in the company of Hernán Vieco to attend the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) in Hoddesdon and listen attentively to the debates taking place at CIAM27 (probably more interested in the proceedings than Rogelio Salmona). While in England, the young Samper had time to visit and draw the urban complex of The Circus and Royal Crescent in Bath designed by John Wood, built between 1767 and 1774 (fig. 15).

In a way, the manner in which the young Colombians approached the Middle Ages would be a palliative, and later a reaction, against the unspeakably empty space that they saw in the ideal urban cities that were created in the workshop on rue de Sèvres in Paris. Le Corbusier advocated for cities full of buildings between greenery and open space, under the sun. With elevated buildings connected by pedestrian roads that linked them to a complex communal system, arterial, and vehicular, and medium sized housing of lower height, the transition between countryside and city was established. Samper and Salmona opted for a reinterpretation of medieval spatiality in their architectonic and urban endeavors,25 in equilibrium and harmonious with the specific landscapes of each place, just like the Regulatory Plan that was developed for Bogotá. In Samper’s case this would translate to what is now well known as his notion of Urban Enclosures.26

In England, the city of Bath in particular, known since Roman times for its hot springs, there is a series of complexes, created by what we today would call speculators; they achieve a sound architecture and urban design by creating residential and commercial units with repetitive elements. I am referring to the Circus (round plaza), Square (squared plaza), crescent (half moon), and a group of wavy bands that are adapted to the slope, all of which are famous in the historiography of architecture28.

Back in the City of Light, while concentrating on the grand axes of composition that defined monumental Paris, Samper simultaneously sketched and studied the Swiss Pavilion in its green and tidy city university campus (fig.14).

24 25 26

Samper visited the English complex perhaps in order to find answers in the sinuous Georgian shapes of the urban complex (figs. 16 to 18), to the doubts that emerged from the CIAM in regards to the ‘Athens Charter’, and also

Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 40.

It would be convenient to advance research in this respect.

See explanation in: Germán Samper, “Recinto urbano 1977”, La evolución de la vivienda, cit., p. 150.

27 Ingrid Quintana, Orígenes de otra modernidad en arquitectura. Dos arquitectos colombianos en Francia en los años cincuenta, cit., p. 72.

28 Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 44.

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perhaps to take a breather from concerns regarding the Master Plan for Bogotá, which he himself, along with Rogelio Salmona and Reinaldo Valencia, had drawn in their mentor’s workshop (see page 26).

Throughout his life and his works, Samper has had to assess the utility of ideas inherited by the spirit of modernity in contrast to the teachings that were left by the French urban tradition.29 It does not require an acute understanding to appreciate what the architect himself has insinuated in his books: that the design of the grand urban projects developed in Colombia would follow, in part, the compositional path that was marked in those large tracings of Paris, Nancy, and Bath, to name a few.30 Following in the steps of Le Corbusier, in 1950 Samper, in the company of his wife Yolanda, visited, the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille for the first time, by way of Italy and Le Cabanon in Cap-Martin.

During the construction of the Unité d’Habitation, Samper drew a meticulous sketch of the terrace, plotting distant views of the building, focal points of the entryway, the rough façades, and the enormous squared columns in the shape of elephant legs which supported the housing block and terrace with the form of a passenger boat.

One drawing in particular should be noted (fig. 20), in which Samper captured the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille peaking out from behind a common building within the city. It can be guessed that he wanted to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of modern models against that of a traditional building’s rural scale. It was the contrast that existed in Marseille during those years, city of enclosed patios and ravines (fig. 21), that ignored the mountainous landscape and the Mediterranean Sea surrounding the city, as pointed out

by Le Corbusier in the Modulor31. This tension between two different realities, which is represented in his drawings, is one that Germán Samper has had to face when taking on his own projects in Colombia.

29 The British and American as well. Refer to the description of his own influences in: Germán Samper, “Legados”, La evolución de la vivienda, cit., p. 25.

30 I should clarify that I am mentioning the influences in the French context, but note the numerous trips of the architect to several other places around the world, which unquestionably extend the breadth of his influences.

31 Le Corbusier, Le Modulor 2, Éditions de l’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, Boulogne, 1955, p. 316.

fig. 16 to 18: The Circus and Royal Crescent in Bath, by John Wood. Sketches nº 0979, 0980, 0981.

fig. 15: Plan of the Square, the Circus and Royal Crescent in Bath, by John Wood. Sketch nº 0978.

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fig. 20: Unité d’Habitation, Marseille. Sketch nº 0380.

fig. 21: Pablo Picasso and Le Corbusier, Unité d’Habitation, Marseille, 1949. FLC/ADAGP.

Encouraged by his mentor,32 the young Colombian returned to the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille in August of 1953, just after attending the ninth, and polemic, meeting of CIAM in Aix-en-Provence. As Ingrid Quintana notes in the investigation of The Origins of The Other Modernity in Architecture:

which sat in the open space of the building that is raised on columns. Picasso (fig. 21), the guest of honor, stood up in the middle of dinner, and looking around without finding a wall said, “where does one piss here?” and relieved himself against one of the large columns that supported the structure. I dared not ask Salmona which column it was so that I may go and revere it.35

Attending CIAM becomes a tradition for Samper. At the ninth edition of said convention in Aix-en-Provence, which took place from the 19th to the 25th of July, the young man mingles with those who, with Candilis, would begin to question the ideology of these celebrated conventions (this is also the first time when attendees disagreed on the drafting of a letter of the habitat) and would declare the end of the same, thus inaugurating TEAM 10 (we are referring to the Smithsons, Coderch, Bakema, Van Eyk, and of course Woods, Candilis’ associate). Samper is also in the company of a few associates from the École Practique des Hautes Études, (EPHE), as well as some from the ATM team. Immediately after, Samper heads to Marseille, where he visits, for the first time since its completion, the Unité d’Habitation (he had seen it in construction on his way to Roquebrune-Cap Martin). This time around Samper has enough time to draw everything, considering he stayed for a full month in what is likely the same apartment where Candilis lived while supervising the last stages of construction. A year earlier, in 1952, Salmona had also visited the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, at the same time that the scaffolding was removed. He did not appreciate the project, thinking it too disconnected from the city.33

Picasso’s “commentary” is not documented, it is beyond historians: “the conductor does not speak”, the cubist genius would literally urinate on the works of purist Le Corbusier.36 According to Sergei Eisenstein, Picasso acted in his time like an elephant in a porcelain shop37. But it takes more than pissing on the handsome elephant leg columns of the Unité d’Habitation to bring them down, even if it’s urine from that very painter from Málaga.

According to Maurice Besset, there had been quite a reaction to the supposed “rationalism” of the Unité by way of romantic praise for the old city and its small scale, and for the “vitality” of the slums, a point of view that it is supported by Jane Jacobs. As an unjust oversimplification of François Choay those who have focused their attacks towards the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille have discredited it as an expression of an undemanding technocracy, nuanced as naturalism a la Rousseau in a Jacobian manner.38 For Besset, from the example of the Unité d’Habitation, the exigencies of high concentration housing were an indispensable condition for freeing urban grounds. This was a mistake. Besset should be cited in order to clarify to the detractors and even the defenders of the Unité d’Habitation; it is more than an isolated block, and perhaps its monumental shape and size is an impediment to seeing its actual economy:

This was the mistake in interpretation made by those who saw the Unité as an isolated organism and was the reason for the demise of pre-existing urban weavings34. With a habitual irony, the comments of Rogelio Salmona against Le Corbusier were frequent, as told by Josep Quetglas:

Now, this economy has nothing to do with the repetition that dominates the combinations of compact blocks and so-called open spaces.

I will tell you a little known anecdote, brought to mind by the Colombian architect Rogelio Salmona, who spent his youth in the workshop of Le Corbusier. At a dinner celebrating the inauguration of the Marseille building, the plates were arranged on a long table,

35 Interview to Josep Quetglas, “La capital de Mallorca no es Palma sino Sant Joan, ese tumor maligno”, Diario de Palma de Mallorca, julio 7 de 2009.

36 To understand the essence of the painter from Málaga and the character of the Spaniard anarchist see: John Berger, Éxito y fracaso de Picasso, Ed. Debate, Madrid, 1965, p. 41.

37 “By then –as an elephant in a porcelain shop- Picasso limited himself to trampling on and to crushing “an order cosmically established” which he hated as such. Not knowing where to aim the punches against those guilty of the social chaos of that “order of things”, he beat “the things” and “the order” before “unexpectedly recovering the sight” in the Guernica, and seeing where and which were the conflicts and the “initial causes”. Sergei Mikhailovitch Eisentein, “Piranesi o la fluidez de las formas”. From Manfredo Tafuri, La esfera y el laberinto, Ed. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 1984, p. 109.

38 Maurice Besset, “Le Corbusier 1945-1965”, La Torre, Revista general de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Homenaje a Le Corbusier, nº 52, enero-abril, 1966, p. 147.

32 See writing Nº 870 in: Germán Samper Gnecco, Croquis de viaje, Europa – Volume 2, p.184. Private collection.

33 Ingrid Quintana, Orígenes de otra modernidad en arquitectura. Dos arquitectos colombianos en Francia en los años cincuenta, cit., p. 73.

34 Against this affirmation see: Carlos Martí Arís, “Le Corbusier: Bogotá, vista aérea”, LC BOG. Le Corbusier en Bogotá, Tomo 2, Precisiones en torno al Plan Director, coordinación editorial, María Cecilia O’Byrne, Bogotá, 2010, p. 16.

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fig. 22: Le Corbusier. Plan of Nemours 1934. Obra completa 1934-38, p. 28.

fig. 23: Terrace of Unité d’Habitation in Marseille. Sketch nº 0878.

The principle, which is based on its…unity, in other words, the organic integration of cells and its “prolongations” in an entirety that is not enclosed, but that finds a state of active osmosis with its surroundings.

The internal structure of the cells, meaning the homes, principally follows the analysis of the particular needs of the family, but at the same time rigorously bares in mind the restrictions and possibilities of living in a community. This search of an integration that is free of the ‘binominal family-society,’ also determines the importance of the shape given to the prolongations of the home as well as its dimensions, or more precisely, the “scale” of the Unité d’Habitation. Above all, it locks the articulation of the circulatory system; the vicissitudes that a community depends on.39

lightness and transparency of the Swiss Pavilion; the purist language of the 50s is nothing more than a “rationalist” approach to a subjective treatment of form, there is no discontinuity, but a progressive enrichment of the same language serving the same desire.41 It is that service directed towards a common will, that some have not been able to, or have not wanted to see in Le Corbusier. The works of the Swiss architect, from his initial explorations: from Maison Domino and Citrohan to his grand urban designs are linked by a conductive thread (invisible to many) or a deep structure that cannot be seen as separate, The thread, not the pearls on the necklace. To see the Unité d’Habitation as a free object on the green landscape, without observing it integrated into a larger system and more complex plot (fig. 22), is what has made it seem isolated.

Reading Maurice Besset’s full text: “Le Corbusier 1945-1965,” provides a complete picture of the Unité, in order that this building should not be seen as an isolated block standing on elephant-like legs, like a beached tanker or a monastery lost in green surroundings, but rather should be seen as as a single cell of a bigger and more complex organism. The Unité d’Habitation is just one of Le Corbusier’s imagined gigantic architectonic apparatuses, of which just a few fragments were built. The criticism that states Le Corbusier as being a great architect but a lousy urban planner is naïve, it is like saying that Picasso painted well on a smaller scale than on a larger one. It is normal for architects, historians, and critics to sharply separate Le Corbusier’s architecture from his urban planning, or the purist period from the so-called brutalist period, or the rational man from the imaginative one, or abstract from humanist… As if the architect was Apollo by day and Dionysius by night.

Samper has been more careful when analyzing the Unité d’Habitation.

His numerous drawings in 1953 (fig. 23), including his previous ones with notes on the building, reflect an almost compulsive obsession with understanding and extracting some sort of legacy, although he has arrived at similar conclusions in regards to understanding it as an upward concentration of housing or, the destroyer of the preexisting urban fabric: The distance between buildings, accentuated by the amplitude of the vehicular roads, slurred the city. They stripped it of its most precious component, the urban space. That space, not empty, is what we have called “enclosure”.42 In 1953, before drawing the Unité d’Habitation of Marseille, the Colombian architect also drew several views of Aix-en-Provence: profiles of the streets, the clock tower, the square of the Hôtel de Ville, and the Saint Sauveur cloister (fig. 24), among others.

All of Le Corbusier’s work is a connected system of two periods .

Besset establishes the connection: 40

Even though apparently in opposition, the curves of Ronchamp are directly derived from the straight angles of Pessac and Wiessenhof, the equilibrium of the cyclopean masses erected in Marseille follow the

Once again, Samper divided his attention between Le Corbusier and the traditional urban structure.

Wanting to evade Scylla he ends up in Charybdis.

39 Ibid. p.145.

40 “Thus the useless controversies between those who, periodically, denounce Le Corbusier as an engineer, a builder, but also a very disciplined individual; and those who are surprised to discover a poetic and formal Le Corbusier: the work of Le Corbusier has always tried to reinitiate the indefinite transition between one state and another, denying the 19th century opposition, so western and bourgeois, between reason and imagination, in favor of a synthesis grounded in both.” Josep Quetqlas, Les heures claires, Proyecto y arquitectura en la ville Savoye de Le Corbusier y Pierre Jeanneret, Ed. Massilia, Sant Cugat del Valles, 2008, p. 16.

41 42

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Maurice Besset, op. cit., p. 157.

Germán Samper, Recinto Urbano. La humanización de la ciudad, cit., p. 194.

At this point, it is important to review a series of drawings dated April 1963 (fig. 25 to 28).43 They are sketches in which Samper attempts to integrate an image of the Unité d’Habitation (representing the modern model) with an image of a typology of a cloister (representing the traditional model). The drawings do not appear to have been made in situ, these are projective or analog in nature. They could be a premature response of the architect to the paradox that has been developed throughout this article. Displeased with one model, and aware of the necessity of the other, Samper forcefully unites both of the “legacies” that he has been studying on his journeys and in his drawings. His sketches anticipate, with many years apart, his research on collective housing where the architect and urban planner would try to combine the legacy of both models into a “New Model” (fig. 29).

Paradoxically, it would be Le Corbusier himself who managed to use them in an architectonic complex in a uniform manner, and without nostalgia. He would achieve this four years later in La Tourette in 1957 (fig. 30). In a Dominican convent the Swiss architect would join all of his explorations in regard to individual and collective housing, outlined in the Unidad Habitacional, integrating the typology of Dominican, Byzantine, Greek and Carthusian Italian; following the aesthetic structure of a Greek temple but utilizing modern day technology.44 In the works of Le Corbusier, the buildings and own investigations on collective housing are linked to his research on primary and institutional buildings (by the same language and same deep structure). One could ask, if in the work of the Colombian architect, there exists a fluid transition between both models, or if it ever achieves (or desires to achieve) this integration.45

fig. 24: Cloister in Aix-en-Provance. Sketch nº 0862.

Samper returned to Colombia the same year as the CIAM in Aix-enProvence, and did not see the completion of the Ronchamp chapel (Salmona worked on this project). He had to wait 22 years to see its composition and artistic details. This return to France provided his first visit to the La Tourette cloister.46 2 After the experience gathered in Colombia: La Fragua, Carimagua, Paz del Rio, Zipaquira, Sogamoso, Sidauto, and the experimental project PREVI in Peru, to name a few, Germán Samper returned to Paris in 1977 for a few weeks. During this visit the architect gave homage to the Eiffel Tower once again (figs. 31 to 34). This time he noticed a more traditional Paris that seemed to be far from its glorious past, besieged by anonymous architecture that in a way presaged the grayish destiny it sees today; it encloses and shuts off the City of Light. The tower also reflected the paradox that Samper has lived, and at that moment in the Paris of the late 70s he confronted it face-to-face.

43 Proyectos mezclando edificios modernos con claustros. Sketches nº 655, 656, 657, 659, in Germán Gnecco, Croquis de viaje, Europa – Volumen 2, pp. 52 a 54.

44 Le Corbusier always tried to harmonize the structural devices around which he organized the shape of his architecture, using the latest scientific conquests in construction. Not because he saw himself pushed by a vain desire for modernism, nor for having felt a moral commitment to the engineers of his time. He approached technique as the greatest liberation that could be provided to men, and in terms of space, to those that build cities; in this sense he spoke of the liberation technique. He had an acute consciousness of what belongs to the technique in regards to the experience of the space in search of architecture, and he aimed to take full advantage of the possibilities that modern construction opens up in this respect”. Maurice Besset, op. cit., p. 158.

45 It would be convenient to advance research in this respect.

46 Ingrid Quintana, Orígenes de otra modernidad en arquitectura. Dos arquitectos colombianos en Francia en los años cincuenta, cit., p.74.

fig. 29: Two models, two substitutes.

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fig. 30: La Tourette cloister. Complete Works 1957-65, p. 35.

The architect asked, Had the CIAM borne fruits? What influence did Le Corbusier’s architecture have in Paris?47 Did traditional Paris still have something to teach us?48 I was aware that there was an anti-CIAM position in terms of urbanism, and I remember one critic of the succeeding group called TEAM 10 that one time said: CIAM never worried about designing a city made of houses. From that moment on, my travels became a search for urban spaces, streets, squares, residential complexes, and public spaces. Since then, urban space would emerge as one of my principal preoccupations49.

Twenty-five years later Samper would be inclined towards one model as opposed to the other. He would manifest his questioning of modern architectural congresses and would affirm convincingly, the CIAM theories without a doubt had been revalued50. It is an affirmation difficult to uphold by the architect of today, but understandable around the mid 70s when there was rejection of the proposals of modernity from several sectors, blaming it for the ailments that had befallen or are befalling the contemporary city. The architect Carlos Martí Arís describes this situation the following way: It is frequent to find, amongst the current urban writings on postmodern ideologies, an opinion that tends to attribute all evils of the 47 According to Alejo Carpentier “…while Paris, conservative city par excellence, today only has a thousand homes, buildings, and modern shops; Berlin, Moscow, Vienna and almost all Dutch and Belgian regions are filled with constructions based on the plans of Le Corbusier, his rivals and disciples. The official buildings in Russia, the skyscrapers and constructions assigned for workers in Germány, not to mention the vast chapter of private homes and country villas of the Netherlands, are definitive portrayals of the modern style, created fifteen years ago by a group of architects who bravely reacted against the dictatorship of the School of Fine Arts. The triumph of this aesthetic, previously so very criticized and despised, was absolute. Before public acceptance, many defenders of previous disciplines were obliged to match the epoch. Believing, as all enemies of new art, that “to do that was easy”, they made absolutely preposterous mistakes –such as the good old Neno, venerable professor, who recently placed, in the middle of Paris boulevard, an Assyrian-futurist cenotaph of astounding ugliness, which served to demonstrate his perfect inability to create a building suitable to meet the practical and aesthetic needs demanded by the architecture conceived by his former students”. Alejo Carpentier, “Reflexiones sobre la arquitectura [1932]”, Massilia, 2005. Annuaire d’estudes corbuseenees, Ed. Associació d’idées. Centre d’Investigacions Estètiques, Sant Cugat del Vallès, 2002, p. 68.

48 Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 321 49 Ibid., p. 163.

50 Ibidem., p. 321.

fig. 25 to 28: Project combining modern buildings and cloisters. Sketches nº 655, 656, 657, 659.

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contemporary city to the so-called anti-urban condition of modern architecture, as if the works of architecture contained the virus of an original sin merely by answering to the characteristic criteria of modernity, which eventuality would destroy specific qualities of urban spaces.51

time Samper and Salmona have tried to offer an alternative to the alleged failure of modern urbanism through their own work and ideas. It was a brave and risky gamble in the face of an elephant with enormous legs.

In my understanding of the modern world, Germán Samper did not inherit the techniques to distort and translate reality, techniques inherent to cubism and purism,55 which is evident in the sketches from his journeys. They do not manipulate reality like the drawings of Kahn or Siza,56 nor are they abstract enough to trace the deep and intrinsic laws of nature, as did those of his mentor in his journey to the East,57 nor do they worship the immediacy of the observed: the minimum use of color confirms this.58 His drawings are not (quoting Kandinsky imprudently): the direct imprint of ‘external nature’ expressed in a graphic-pictorial manner, which is to say imprints are neither expressions mainly unconscious, usually sudden, of processes of internal nature, meaning they lack the foresight of ‘internal nature’ improvisations; saved proportions are perhaps expression (…) that is created with extraordinary slowness and that

It is clear, however, that Samper is not part of the postmodern ideology, despite having felt attracted by some of the protagonists of the European league.52 Samper lived and worked within the modern movement and inevitably had to react against it, like the son to the father, or the student to the teacher.

To maintain his distance from modernity, the architect leaned towards the nostalgic visions of Rob Krier.53 In fact, this architect from Luxembourg would represent the opposing face of Le Corbusier.54 With 51 Carlos Martí Arís, La cimbra y el arco, Ed. Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, Barcelona, 2005, p. 73.

52 “This movement is one where anything is permitted, from the return to the use of classic columns, to decorativism and historicism, etc. It accentuates the tendency to architectural pluralism, which translated into urban schemes is the sign of anarchy, disorder, and chaos. While Europe talks of recovering the streets, the use of new typologies that fit in traditional contexts, the search for an urban architecture, North America exalts the personal architecture of ‘prima donas’, evidently with class and most of the time, imitations. Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 164.

53 Rob Krier uses the past, not as an active condition of the present however, which tends to disqualify him.

The style of one epoch cannot be forged with the style of another. It is the universal notions, rather than the particular ones, that should be rescued from the past.

54 Rob Krier (…) with time became the antithesis of Le Corbusier. Due to his personality, his struggle to impose his theories, his creativity; he is an architect with whom parallels to the Swiss architect can be drawn”, (…) “His critical analysis of the Modern Movement quickly brought him to understand that the city was being deconstructed” (…) “Krier, put his theories into practice in a reconstruction project of Stutgart, just as Le Corbusier did in Paris. The difference is that the Germán architect instead of destroying to replace, proposes to rebuild the old scheme of spaces, which he calls great continuous compositions, something he has in common with the Swiss master; being beautiful utopias”. Germán Samper, “Teoría y práctica de los espacios urbanos”, Recinto urbano. La humanización de la ciudad, cit., pp. 160-165.56. I understand cubism as, “an art entirely focused on the interaction among different perspectives: between sculpture and movement; between solid objects and the space around them; between ambiguous signs of a paintings’ frame and the changing reality that they represent”, John Berger, Existo y fracaso de Picasso, cit., p. 92. And “since we live Après le cubisme” [once we re-interpret the past], “a literal reproduction of motives is not possible, it is necessary to introduce deformations, both to re-establish a tense harmony and to discretely hide the references”, Josep Quetglas, Les heures claires, cit., p. 558.

This is the mechanism employed by Le Corbusier to translate from the past to the present without a stylistic nostalgia.

55 I understand cubism as, “an art entirely focused on the interaction among different perspectives: between sculpture and movement; between solid objects and the space around them; between ambiguous signs of a paintings’ frame and the changing reality that they represent”, John Berger, Existo y fracaso de Picasso, cit., p. 92. And “since we live Après le cubisme” [once we re-interpret the past], “a literal reproduction of motives is not possible, it is necessary to introduce deformations, both to re-establish a tense harmony and to discretely hide the references”, Josep Quetglas, Les heures claires, cit., p. 558. This is the mechanism employed by Le Corbusier to translate from the past to the present without a stylistic nostalgia.

56 Regarding Siza’s and Kahn’s way of drawing, see. Luis Moreno Mansilla, “Dos vistas de Siena y un paseo por la mirada” y “El ademán geológico”, Apuntes de viaje al interior del tiempo, Ed. Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, Colección Arquithesis 10, Barcelona, 2002.

57 Throughout his drawings, Le Corbusier searched for the intrinsic law of things. For example, his palette composed of elemental solids: cone, sphere, cylinder, prism, shows this after a long trip from Toscana in 1907, to the trip to the East in 1911, where Le Corbusier goes from a Ruskin-look of contemplation of chromatic effects and particular details of building’s façades, to looking closer at the descriptions of Hippolyte Taine in his famous Voyage d’Italie, a long search to determine pure shapes and general relations among buildings. The entire process of abstraction is expressed in Le Corbusier’s drawings with the objective of going back to the initial causes of things: searching for laws, deep geometries, regulating outlines, platonic solids, etc. For further information on this topic see: Paul V. Turner, La formation de Le Corbusier: idéalisme et mouvement moderne, Ed. Macula, Paris, 1987.

58 In over 4,000 of his drawings, Samper hardly ever uses charcoal, and touches of color with pencil or watercolor are rare. There is no major interest in measuring the impact of the atmospheres over the buildings.

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fig. 31 to 34: three views of Eiffel Tower, December 1976 – January 1977. Sketches nº 3264, 3265, 3266, 3267.

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worked upon and analyzed pedantically after the first sketch (…) Determining factors are: reason, conscience, intention, and purpose.59 From the modern world, Samper inherited a sense of change, of social responsibility: the necessity of transforming society, better yet, transforming society with architecture and urban planning. Modernity was not just a technological and stylistic change in architecture; it was a reflection of a new state of consciousness that consisted in transforming people’s lives for the better with architecture as a wildcard. Already, Mies van der Rohe had expressed this in one of his enigmatic, but revealing aphoristic phrases: The home of our time does not yet exist, the transformation of our way of living demands realization. By reversing this phrase, what is important is to transform people’s lives with architecture, and not to change architecture because of an adolescent fervor, to create an autobiographical imprint, or in opposition to the old.60 Nowadays many architects are not aware of this necessity and look towards changing shape or style, when they should be looking at changing the people’s state of mind and quality of life. What is important, as a French politician would say, change la vie, meaning that architecture can and should change the way people live, elevating them to a more dignified state. This is the fundamental reason why Samper and Salmona, upon returning to Colombia, showed an interest in social housing. One of them continued with this exploration; the other abandoned it. Nevertheless, there should be no doubt that the interest in this transformation is one of the major lessons that both of the young architects inherited from modernity, passing through the City of Light, in the fifties, the cradle of human rights.

fig. 35: Balance de una obra. Germán Samper, La evolución de la vivienda, p. 9.

for both of them, the modern was what produced the dehumanization of cities a strong appreciation for the architects who (in the 20th century) had tried to provide meaning and shelter to human evolution.63 Germán Samper has been more open in publicly recognizing his legacy from Le Corbusier, whereas in Salmona’s case, it needs to be discovered in his works: the conductor does not speak, or speaks little. In Salmona, the mentor’s teachings are not evident. In fact, both architects sought to define themselves outside of the triangle in which they were enrolled during the 50’s. Upon returning to Colombia they tried to escape the weight of what it meant to shoulder Le Corbusier. Samper and Salmona attempted to find alternative models that were more consistent with the harsh reality in Colombia, where modern urbanism had no place.

Throughout his life Germán Samper has, through his ideas and work, tried to solve the paradox that he has been hinting at, considering the work done with the grand machine that is Le Corbusier61 and to simultaneously live the effects that the capital of the civilized world would have on any mortal: Paris imposes, on the inhabitant, it’s urban behavior and it is very difficult not to be subsumed by its regulations.62 But Samper did not react critically to modernism from the outside; he did so just as Salmona did, from the inside. They did it as protagonists, trying to find a way out of the alleged failure of modernity (a debatable failure that is yet to be measured). From modernity, Samper also inherited an entire arsenal of work and analyses. His study drawings in the books, The Evolution of Housing, and Urban Enclosures, provide a summary of Samper’s ideas on architecture and city planning. The Humanization of the City draws conclusions in an orderly and systematic manner which, due to their methodology (fig. 35), would have surprised Le Corbusier himself, since many of the ideas expressed contrasted with his own or attempted to summarize or synthesize his approaches.

During his visit to Paris in 1977, arriving with extensive experience in the field of construction and social housing, Samper brought a vast urban-planning doctrine already developed and in use. It can be summed up thusly: first, the search for higher density buildings of lower height should be employed against the vertical city; against what he himself has called the Manhattanism.64 Second, the reduction of space between structures, in conjunction with the utilization of empty space or public space. Third, the development of massive urban blueprints, or preliminary volumetric mass instead of subdividing plots and individually designing isolated units.

Fourth, the utilization of massive plans as mediating instruments between the design of the complex and the urban developer. Fifth, the integration

Samper and Salmona decided to leave aside all that they considered useless of the modern, especially its postulates in regards to the city, since 59 Escola Técnica superior d’arquitectura de Barcelona, Homenatge al catedràtic Manuel Bauqero i Briz amb motiu del seu comiat com a profesor, cit., p. 18.

60 An awareness of the present state does not mean a destruction or negation of the past. Better, an attitude that understands the active past in the present.

61 To such a man, such drama, such architecture. It should not be affirmed with too much certainty that the masses produce a man. A man is an exceptional phenomenon that reproduces through long stages, perhaps randomly, perhaps following the frequency of a cosmography yet too difficult to determine”. Le Corbusier, Hacia una arquitectura, cit., p. 133.

62 It happened to Hegel: see Joseph Quetglas, “Caricatura de un tema: Hegel o Casanova”, La casa de Don Giovanni, Ed. EXIT.LMI, Madrid, 1997, p. 4.

63 Le Corbusier: “perhaps the architect who has best represented the individual effort, being equal to the circumstances, in face of the times in which he lived, to the condition, stimulus, and objective of the human existence; the personal voice of a collective ambience”. Josep Quetglas, Massilia, 2002. Anuario de estudios Lecorbusierianos, Ed. Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, Barcelona, 2002, p. 3.

64 Germán Samper, “La Manhatización de las ciudades”, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 321.

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These principles could be seen in traditional Paris, which I had walked during the 1950s with a kind of indifference. Now I wanted to see them with different eyes, with other interests, I wanted to unravel their history, their genesis, to see if, from this basis, it would be possible to build a springboard into the future.68 This springboard, firmly supported by his work in Colombia, would serve to leap him over modern Paris (of which only the Centre Georges Pompidou would be salvaged, which seems to be the new Notre-Dame of Paris).

Paradoxically, Samper’s interpretation coincided with one line (fig. 36) in an excerpt from Le Corbusier’s study of the City of Light: both architects would rescue the grand axes of composition that support monumental Paris. This is how the Swiss architect expressed it: The axis of the wheel must be fixed. In Paris, the axis (of a thousand years) oscillates from left to right and right to left, between NotreDame and the Place de Vosges, the Place de Vosges and Les Invalides, Les Invalides and la Gare de L’Est, la Gare de L’Est and Sant Augustin.

In relation to the wheel (railways, neighborhoods, suburbs and slums, national routes, underground trains, streetcars, administrative and commercial centers, industrial and housing areas) the center does not move. It has remained. It must remain.69

fig. 36: Main París places defined by axis.

Sketch nº 0777.

In his subsequent urban proposals, Samper would advocate for the use of an axis of composition that would sustain a continuous volumetry of retained spaces, of enclosures, and of housing complexes of lower and medium height with a high population density, instead of the grouping of tall buildings with high density such as Le Corbusier’s. Samper would maintain the axis of composition, but he moved away from urban planning based on “convex and isolated objects that generate a continuous void, in which the open spaces lose their precise shape.” This is what the Colombian architect has stated:

of uses and activities of built structures that fuse to create one urban mass.

Sixth, the creation of residential premises that are closed to traffic.65 On numerous occasions, Le Corbusier has presented four brutal, concise, postulates, the foundations of modern urban planning which, according to his conviction, would answer with exactitude the dangers that threaten the city. They are as follows; first, decongestion of city centers to address the demands of circulation. Second, increase in the density of city centers to achieve the accessibilty demanded by businesses. Third, increase the means of transportation, i.e. completely change the current concept of the street which does not accommodate the new means of transportation, subways, cars, streetcars, or airplanes. Fourth, increase green areas; it is the only way to ensure the tranquility and necessary hygiene to match the new pace of business.66

In regards to urban planning, the modern movement wanted to break with the traditional structure of the city. Death was decreed to the “street corridor.” With the introduction of self-standing volumes the design became free, governed by orientation, floating amongst parks rather than just perched on the ground. Automobiles were imagined far away, running on multi-level highways. The concept of urban space suffered a complete rupture. The traditional street, complex and varied in its many uses, wonderfully confounded in the history that was accumulated on it, was not recommended by the masters of modernism. The idea of the unnamable space arises as something indefinable, diffuse, far away, nebulous, as something similar to outer space.70

Samper’s doctrine seems to arise both in and against that of Le Corbusier’s. Clearly, in his visit to Paris in 1977, the scale was tipped towards traditional Paris for the Colombian architect. His doctrine came, in part, from the study of the city itself. Samper would advocate, in his urban planning, the use of what he would call a continuous volumetry, a ‘volumetry’ created from retained public space, nothing more than an interpretation of Medieval (and Baroque, amongst others) plans of enormous plazas: the D’Auphine, Vendome, Louis XV, Vosges,67 and of monumental complexes such as the Louvre, Les Invalides, Champs de Mars, and the boulevards and Parisian streets, such as the famous Rivoli.

It would be a similar position to that of Colin Rowe, who would see the crisis in the isolated object in the lack of urban texture.71 The Spanish architect Carlos Martí Arís resumes the argumentation of the renowned English critic the following way: Throughout the first half of the 20th century, and in an irreversible manner, the urban matrix experiences a radical transformation. It moves from a structural fabric that acts as a continuous solid, where open spaces appear as cutout figures within a malleable mass, to a construction based on isolated and convex objects that generate a continu-

65 Germán Samper, La evolución de la vivienda, cit., pp, 98 and 99.

66 Le Corbusier, La ciudad del futuro, cit., p. 72. Original title: Urbanisme. Primera edición 1924.

67 “The Place des Vosges in Paris was the model that inspired these projects, which would be accomplished in the Ciudadela Real de Minas and in Colsubsidio, Bogotá”. Germán Samper, Recinto urbano. La humanización de la ciudad, cit., p. 235.

68 69 70 71

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Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 324 Le Corbusier, La ciudad del futuro, cit., p. 73. Original title: Urbanisme. Primera edición 1924.

Germán Samper, Recinto urbano. La humanización de la ciudad, Ed. Escala, Bogotá, 1997, p. 60.

Colin Rowe, “La crisis del objeto: dificultades de textura”, Ciudad collage, Ed. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 1981, p. 54.

3

ous vacuum, in which open spaces lose a determined shape and become the foreground of a weft, so that the role of the figure now falls on the buildings presented as isolated forms. We are, therefore, in front of a radical topological transformation of the urban space that occurs with the complicity of modern architecture.72

Germán Samper returned to Paris in the year 2000, thirty-three years after his second visit, and fifty-two after his first. He had accumulated vast experience from work on numerous prodigious housing projects in Colombia and South America, including the difficult and steep Ciudad Bolivar in Bogotá, the Medieval city of Las Brujas in Medellín, the Georgian project of the Military Housing Fund in Bogotá, the super block in the city of Guasare in Maracaibo, the lineal yet sinuous neighborhood of Colseguros in Bogotá, the reticular Ciudad Meléndez in Cali, the walled buildings of Central Mortgage Bank in Manizales, the Venetian Ciudadela Real de Minas in Bucaramanga, and the French and English Gothic Colsubsidio Citadel in Bogotá, to name a few.

To which the Catalan architect retorts: Even more doubtful is that the change imposed by those conditions of form (buildings as isolated pieces and open space as a continuous vacuum) inevitably leads to the deterioration and negation of strictly urban values and qualities (…) In reality, what modern urban planners do is to recognize the inescapable character of this process; to try to recognize the cause and to work from the facts, the same way that modern architecture does not argue with the existence of new materials or the possible use of alternative systems of construction. From this point of view, it is pointless to lament over the loss of hegemony in modern architecture and the loss of continuity in the building fabric of the contemporary city.73

If a first trip means confronting the experience of that place where one has lived, a second trip tends to blur the strength of that first impression, and a third would be made with the intention of gauging the experience acquired from the first ones.

In this newest journey around the city, the architect returned to pay his compliments to the Eiffel Tower, and he drew it from the terrace of Chaillot Palace (fig. 37), from the same position as the first outline half a century earlier (fig.5, pag. 137). The architect was repeating and recalling his first encounter with the Iron Lady that bore witness to and guided his destiny. In the drawing done in 1949, the attention was placed on the Tower with a horizontal profile of the city; in the new drawing Samper explicitly places attention on the axis that leads from the Chaillot Palace to the Tower. He states:

As such, there is no point in lamenting the loss of continuity in the preexisting urban fabric after the arrival of the empty space of urban modernism, as we did not regret the appearance of the Baroque subsequent to the Renaissance, or the Renaissance after the Gothic. In fact, if Germán Samper’s drawings of Nancy are observed, one could deduce that when the inhabitants and visitors take a stroll in the center of said city, what they are really doing is strolling through time, in a masterly succession of spaces, from the Middle Ages, to the Baroque, to the Renaissance.74

The Tower has been placed in the middle of an urban composition from the Baroque era, which created compositional axes that generate long bridges, gardens, steps, enclaves of an urban symmetry that people perceive and love.

Is it not exciting to experience a journey from a traditional large fenced off plaza, that links us with our past and allows us to gaze into the sky, to that of an open esplanade, empty and unnamed, where a building is erected in the acoustical center of the space (not in the geometric one), open to the horizon, that places us in a symphony with the natural environment, and that in its silence allows us to meditate upon our own destiny? 75

The architect and urban planner would feel influenced by the classic specular symmetries of traditional Parisian planning which centers on grand monuments that, in turn, are in opposition to the artificially balanced symmetries of modern composition which end in the landscape.77

Modern urbanism has not signified the ruin or the negation of what is urban. It has been a natural answer to the spirit of an age: as an expression of a collective sentiment, and a normal reaction to the status quo, as the answer to a misunderstood academism. Miles van der Rohe points out the inevitable happens nonetheless.

When observing the drawing, it can be noticed that Samper shifted towards the right (as in the drawing of the Louvre), in order to maintain a full awareness of the axis that joins one point to the other. It is evident that this sketch is completed with more ease and fluidity than that of the initial sketches of the Tower, revealing that the architect has achieved a certain tranquility when it comes to drawing, aside from technique, and the memory of his previous visualizations and the ratification of the lessons learned are apparent. The Tower still stands, courageous; the Iron Lady presides over the transformation of the city, over traditional and modern Paris. For Samper, the contemplation of the energetic Tower in its stoic solitude, reflected and affirmed the arduous and patient work he had done in Colombia.

Architecture, necessarily, has to contend with both permanence and change: This dialect between continuity and change is drawn from the concept of tradition in its etymological sense (trádere: to transmit, to pass the baton, to continue an open process)… The idea of tradition is not incompatible with the idea of innovation…76

During this stay in Paris, the architect visited the Eiffel Tower and also la Maison La Roche, located at number 8-10 of the Doctor Blanche plaza. The house now functions as the Le Corbusier Foundation, which Samper sketched in an unusually spread out manner (fig. 38),78 he then passed over the grand

72 Carlos Martí Arís, La cimbra y el arco, Ed. Fundación Caja de Arquitectos, Barcelona, 2005, p. 74.

73 Ibid.

74 In this route an eternal spatial experience takes place.

75 Le Corbusier remarked that when you find the acoustic center of a building or a piazza, the point at which all sounds within the given space can best be heard, you have also found the point at which a piece of sculpture should be placed. All architecture worthy of the name pleads to be condensed in this way.” John Berger, Art and Revolution, Ed Pantheon Books, New York, p. 71 76 In this respect, there is a powerful phrase that I have heard has been attributed to several authors, among them the composer Igor Stravinsky, whom many rightly consider a great innovator. The phrase says: “all that is not tradition is plagiarism”. Or, in other words, all creation that does not recognize its debts to the historical legacy is condemned to present several things as its own which, conscious or unconsciously, have been taken from preceding works. The idea of tradition is not incompatible with the idea of innovation…” Carlos Martí Arís, La cimbra y el arco, cit., pp. 50 y 51.

77 Architecture and modern urbanism do not always demonstrate specular symmetries. On certain occasions, the composition and the perception are activated by symmetries of optical balances: The raw matter is neither created nor destroyed, it moves: the first principle of the artificial symmetry. When it is lacking on one side, it shows up on the other. Josep Quetglas, “Viajes alrededor de mi alcoba”, Revista Arquitectura, no 264-265, Revista del colegio oficial de arquitectos de Madrid, p. 103.

78 Like on in certain occasions, he drew the interior of Ronchamp. See sketch No. 3458.

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fig. 38: La Roche house. Le Corbusier Foundation. Sketch nº 3486.

axis that links the Louvre, La Place de la Concorde, La Champs Eysses, La Place de L’Etoile with its monumental Arc du Triomphe, then the axis leads to the business centre, Arc de Le Defense (fig. 39). Samper writes in his notebook: On the corner of a café with many windows, while escaping from a persistent drizzle that leaves no alternatives, I draw the already famous Arche de La Defense in Paris. I meditate on the birth and death of modern architecture. Yesterday I was in the Le Corbusier Foundationwhich today occupies two houses designed by the Maestro. They are a miracle of simplicity, where thoughts of an architecture that desires to reshape the world are born.

And while he continues writing the record: Modern architecture is born in (sic) Le Corbusier and dies in La Defénse.79 The pristine geometry of the Arch is a great achievement.

It synthesizes the history of France, the triumphs of Napoleon, the urbanism of the grand axes, and the perspectives that culminate in such monuments. It is an Arch made in the scale of the 20th century.

The French ambition of the North American skyscraper becomes a reality in Le Defense, but at the same time it is the death certificate of modern architecture. The sterile glass buildings in the style of Mies are 79

This sentence indicates the axis that followed Samper himself in Paris.

fig. 39: Arche de La Defénse. Sketch nº 3491.

fig. 37: The Eiffel Tower from Chaillot Palace, 2000. Sketch nº 3545.

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fig. 40: Place de l’Alma. Croquis nº 3535.

fig. 41: París main axis, from L’Etoile to the arche de la Defénce. Sketch nº 3493.

The architect connects pages together and draws steadily to cover more and more of the city: issue that reveals the origin of his concerns, ever since his first explorations in the south of France, after he first settled in Paris.80 His first, shy, small drawings of central perspectives, have become enormous panoramas; over time his way of seeing has expanded; now the architect has reencountered photography, and he observes the world through a large angular lens.

like tombs for office workers who move briskly over the esplanade of La Defénse. It is an inhumane space in spite of the people. Its people are in a hurry, making transactions, doing business, pressed for time. They are far away from the delicious cafes, where time flows without constraints. Here they grab a quick sandwich, in a café they would enjoy a stimulating appetizer.

Between the tranquil café (dolce far niente), the quick sandwich (fast food), and between traditional and modern Paris (figs. 40 and 41), with the ever-watchful Eiffel Tower, the city continues to grow hastily over the boundaries of its monumental axis. Samper continues to draw with the same determination of his youth.

Goethe points out that traveling does not consist in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

The life of Samper has taken place between his study travels and his work in Colombia:

The city grows and expands in the knock of modernity, and against tradition, as Samper’s drawings and gaze follow.

There is a kind of counterpoint between traveling and working in an office that establishes what could be a cycle in the creative process and can be explained thusly: Travel instills an experience of the spaces which are processed in the mind many times over, and become an unconscious heritage or resource during the designing phase. What emerges on the drawing table leaves new questions that will be answered in upcoming travels. A mental dialogue is established which eventually leads to certainties which become commitments in subsequent research.81

Contrary to hearing, the visual, in the words of John Berger , is developed only as our understanding of what is being seen develops.

From a while back, a page from a travel notebook was not sufficient for Samper to record his impressions. His head does no longer goes up-anddown, left-to-right, now the architect moves himself that from a fixed position: up and down steps, or over the rail of his small chair, moving back or forward.

80 81

152

See the drawing No 003 in: Germán Samper, Croquis de viaje, Europa – Volumen 1, p. 5.

Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, cit., p. 163.

fig. 42: Unite d’Habitation, Marseille, by Le Corbusier.

Complete Works 1938-46, p. 172.

fig. 43: Sena Buiding, Bogotá.

It is difficult to keep from imagining that while combing Le Corbusier’s Paris and traditional Paris, Samper is not only reliving his stay, but also measuring and comparing his studies of the city with projects he has done in Colombia; after 46 years of professional practice.

One would ask oneself: Has a clear orientation and declaration towards the architecture of Le Corbusier prevailed in buildings such as The Avianca Building, The Central Mortgage Bank Building, The Gold Museum, The Convention Centre of Cartagena building, The Sena Building, to name a few (figs.42 and 43).

On the projects I have worked on, as a designer for Esquerra Saenz and Samper, the influence of the Maestro is evident.82 When Samper designed or built one of the tall buildings in Colombia, did he wish to evoke the singular expressive strength of the Eiffel Tower, creating silhouettes that over time would become (proportional to the Iron Lady) symbols of Colombian cities (fig. 44)?

82

“El Plan Piloto visto por Germán Samper. Entrevista, 1 de agosto 2009”, LC BOG. Le Corbusier en Bogotá, cit., p. 157. fig. 44: Coltejer buiding, Medellín.

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fig. 49: Plaza Mayor, Real de Minas Citadel.

La evolución de la vivienda, p. 165.

Perhaps the compositions of his large urban projects such as PREVI, La Alhambra, Santa Anita, Los Naranjos, Colseguros, to name a few, followed the tradition of the grand axes of the great French cities? Let us compare, for example, the scheme of La Ciudadela Real de Minas with the drawing that Samper did of the axes of composition that determine the urban plan of Paris (figs. 45 and 46), or one of the preliminary schemes of the Citadela Colsubsidio with that of the Baroque Medieval style that he witnessed in Nancy (figs. 47 and 48).

I moved away from preexisting patterns of the horizontal and vertical city-garden in order to explore a pattern of compact housing of high density and low height. This led me to new methods of space occupation and, finally, to the search of urban enclosures conformed to the architecture that placed me in a position radically in opposition to the “radiant city” of the Maestro. These reflections allowed me to design projects the likes of Ciudadela Real de Minas in Bucaramanga, the Ciudadela Colsubsidio in Bogotá, and the PREVI project in Peru; and to feel the need for writing books on the subject.83 Lastly, Samper would eventually realize a common thread in his investigations of collective housing and that of Le Corbusier’s: The curious epilogue to these reflections is that, Le Corbusier proposed this type of housing in his Pilot Plan for Bogotá, but his proposals were buried in urban plans. Recognizing the importance of these proposed prototypes sixty years ago, which today are fully valid, represents an act of justice for my mentor.84 In regards to collective housing one should also ask: Does the dearly held idea of achieving variety through the repetition of elements in his residential complexes result in the parcel-like structure of the medieval city, and the style of streets and façades of Parisian boulevards (figs.

49 & 50) as imposed by Napoleon III in conjunction with his prefect, Baron Haussman?

Is there a pattern of connection to his residential complexes, regressed bases, noble bodies, and a certain stylistic nostalgia in the use of inclined roofs that recall pointed towers, Gothic gables, and Parisian attics? (figs. 51 & 52) 83 84

fig. 45: Real de Minas Citadel. Germán Samper, Recinto urbano. La humanización de la ciudad, p. 236.

Ibid., p.158.

Ibidem.

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fig. 46: Paris monumentales axes.

Croquis nº 0985.

fig. 51: Colsubsidio Citadel. La evolución de la vivienda, p. 187.

fig. 50: Rivoli Street. Walled buildings regulated by a basic profile.

Germán Samper, La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje, p. 338.

fig. 47: Preliminary sketch, Colsubsidio Citadel.

La evolución de la vivienda, p. 175.

fig. 48: Nancy monumental axes.

Sketch nº 0984.

fig. 52: Rue de Sèvres. The way to Le Corbusier’s Atelier. Sketch nº 3482.

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In his residential complexes, are there not bold projections that assault and embrace the public space as if to keep it from being invaded, which are derived from the French Middle Ages, from Italian sotoportegos and grand arches like those that decorate the entries of the traditional courtyards in the neighboring Le Marais in Paris? (figs. 53, 54, & 55) Perhaps those inclined roofs, found in almost all of his residential complexes, including his own, are a bit like Le Corbusier’s, except for the eaves and the gable.85 Are they not an evocation of that English-style house in Bogotá with a chimney where the architect spent his youth in Avenida de Chile? (figs.

56, 57 & pag.135 fig.1).

Thus the overhanging roofs emerged, which received the name of gables, architectonic components of medieval cities, widely used in the so-called English style of Bogotá.86 The traveler is a person of deep roots.

The work of the architect and urban planner has been discussed and will continue to be discussed, between the loss of the ineffable space.87, and the search for the lost urban space.88

fig. 53: Access portal. Colsubsidio Citadel. La evolución de la vivienda, p. 185.

Germán Samper will go back again one day, to the City of Light, to visit, once again, the Eiffel Tower, the works of Le Corbusier and that of traditional Paris.

He will draw it all over again, drawing, drawing, his way of seeing ever expanding.

85 Germán Samper, La evolución de la vivienda, cit., p. 236.

86 The architect referring to the Ciudadela Colsubsidio. Ibid., p. 176.

87 Maurice Besset clearly defined the human reason Le Corbusier used the continuous vacuum as mediator between buildings: “The same mystery of the proportions where a modest chapel takes its paradoxical strength [Ronchamp], also measures the gigantic esplanade of Chandigarh, allowing the architectural shapes to create, between men and place, that solemn memory from where consciousness of a common responsibility originates. The singular merit of the Modular consists in creating exceptional spaces apart from the standards of everyday life which men, distanced from their everyday life, assume fully – a continuity of harmony that allows passage through, without ruptures in its usage,, to the signs of the greatest callings – and that puts each thing in its place it installs in men, its truth. Le Corbusier knows well that it is not the rhetorical uproar, forever disqualified, but in the silence of the “unspeakable space” where decisions are born which allow men to dominate their destiny”. Maurice Besset, op. cit., p. 165.

88 Against the continuum vacuum, Samper searches for ‘lost space’, which refers to two ideas: “One refers to a type of space that existed in the past, which can be valued and felt, or in other words, experience; the other proposes its reclamation as a way to humanize our cities. It makes reference to the small space, to the space of human scale, for the use of men”. Germán Samper, Recinto urbano. La humanización de la ciudad, cit., p. 122. fig. 54 y 55: French courtyard, Le Marais, Paris. Sketch nº 773, 774, 776.

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fig. 56: Las Brujas neighborhood, Medell铆n.

Germ谩n Samper, Recinto urbano. La humanizaci贸n de la ciudad, p. 48.

fig. 57: Samper House. La evoluci贸n de la vivienda, p. 247.

157

A missed opportunity Carlos Campuzano Castelló

M

any things changed in Bogotá after the riot called “Bogotazo”, on the 9th of April of 1948, from disorder, fire, destruction and robbery, to anger, fear, and amazement. The city began to see itself as a child does when discovering his adolescence, or as a winter morning, in countries with seasons, when one opens the window and feels that spring has awakened; those imprecise moments when people and places begin to gradually transform.

Although it was somewhat of a big town, connected to the world by “El Colombiano de Avianca”, Bogotá wanted to become a city, with the dimensions, character, dreams, and pretensions of a city. Political violence in the countryside pushed new residents into the City. There was almost no international migration in comparison to other Latin American countries. The society was rural and would take at least another fifteen years to become an urban one.

During the first stages of the population growth people lived in houses.

There were very few apartment buildings. Bogotá was a horizontal city of low density, born out of the cobbled streets of La Candelaria, with introverted character facing towards hispano-islamic styled patios. It then sauntered towards the north, down Calle Real, parallel to the mountains, and also towards the south from Las Cruces to Primero de Mayo and Veinte de Julio where it becomes more arid and lower income. Calles and Carreras were formed, blocks were born, small and big lots were delineated in which one and two level houses were erected, forming neighbourhoods such as La Merced, Teusaquillo, La Magdalena, La Soledad, La Quinta Camacho, Los Alcázarez, and many more, with a park and a church, with corner stores; and where streets were the only public space, generally not too wide and not too green. Isolated houses on larger lots began to appear, social classes were marked by neighbourhood: El Retiro, El Nogal, La Avenida Chile, La Cabrera, towards the north, and to the south towards Bosa and Soacha. The impulse of attraction towards Engativá and the west would be promoted by the construction of the El Dorado airport in the late fifties.

In the midst of these changes, the neighbourhoods of Sears and Nicolás de Federmán, close to the Universidad Nacional were developed, as well as the Antiguo Country, on an abandoned lot left by a club when it moved to the countryside. A new middle class city appeared which adopted the lifestyle of four-stories buildings as seen in the Polo neighbourhood in an official density report that was very successful.

The journey of the city continued towards the north with the appearance of El Chicó and a type of lot, twenty by forty meters, where “modern” one-story houses were erected. The houses had ample spaces directed towards a large interior garden, which the living room, dining room, and main bedroom faced.

This was the city of the sixties.

Downtown was gradually abandoned. People no longer lived there and only went to “Bogotá” to their offices, banks, and government institutions. The south expanded with a messier typology of small lots, with water and energy services, if anything.

The conquest of the territory began with barely any formality, simply wanting to solve the fundamental problem of where to live. There was neighborhood life; the street, par excellence, was used freely as a social space. Children

did not play in their houses, because they didn’t have gardens. They rode

their bicycles on the street or went to the park. Other considerations, such as public space or aesthetic, simply did not exist. Nevertheless, one could say that there was more social cohesion and solidarity, which the higher classes, featuring isolated and independent buildings, self-sufficient and introverted, didn’t have.

In regards to politics, the country would move from progressive dictatorship to stability (at least in appearance), due to a shift to shared power, which focused its energy on the betterment of the country and not on partisan struggles or vigilant opposition. Still, tension was building, inequality was obvious, social justice unattended, and insecurity was increasing.

From the destruction of infrastructure, the city saw the need to rebuild itself in modernity, which until that moment had scarcely appeared.

The old started to crumble, everything that was new was adopted, which brought them up to date with what was happening in other major cities, such as Mexico City, Havana, or Caracas. On the one hand, this led to a very stimulating outcome, since high quality work started to appear, but on the other hand, the disdain for the old led to its abandonment and destruction.

The savannah of Bogotá , due to its geography, climate, and environment, is not only of immense beauty, but also is privileged with fertility. It is the orchard of the city. It seemed without conscience that the city slowly grew and extended like an “oil slick”, dangerously pointing towards destruction and contamination. The fundamental concern was focused on the costs of urbanization and bringing utilities and roads away from developed areas. Environmental issues, of which we are nowadays aware, were not taken into account.

The tendency of uncontrolled growth of the city increased vertiginously: towards the north extremities, and outer centres, such as Unicentro.

Towards the south hectares of informal horizontal construction took place.

Both were equally invasive and destructive to the environment and the territory. The need to make a deep consideration that would propose a radical change in the way in which housing and the city were growing was becoming clear.

In this context Germán Samper returned from Paris, the city in which he was involved in the Atelier of the architect Le Corbusier from 1948 to 1954. He arrived loaded with a suitcase full of priceless personal growth, which he put to the service of society and the city. His clarity of concepts, his rigor, and his discipline allowed him, unlike many others, to be a universal architect in the most literal sense. He could change scale and subject with ease, imagine the city, plan emblematic towers or intimate spaces for music, spaces that dignify the worker, always hospitable, even a magical space that made gold shimmer. The reason for his versatility and mastery is a common bottom line, and the main objective of his work: respect and consideration for everyone.

Far from wanting to be in the spotlight, Samper teaches us that, when creating housing, the job of the architect is that of companion to the inhabitants (above all, the most modest) in their expression of the desire

to have a home, which may be the most important endeavour of the Latin American family. Since the sixties, Germán has shown his irrevocable commitment to working for the wellbeing of the impoverished is a fundamental axis of his interest in architecture.

Samper focuses on the study of urban planning oriented towards the construction of a better city in which to live. He departs from the rigorous analysis of existing models. On the one hand, there is the spread-out city composed of individual atoms, juxtaposed, on the other hand, with long webs of streets. The urban structure had no limits, nor hierarchies; there was individuality and no sense of community. The public space was the street. Two separate worlds were established there: one was outside, public, and one was inside, private. It was a model of low-density housing (14 to 15 units per hectare), of individual prototypes, with inefficient, wasteful use of resources, and unstoppable growth taking over the territory.

The street became the almost exclusive territory of the automobile, and pedestrians ceded their primacy and their free connectivity. Lowdensity made for a more extended city, with longer commutes from homes to areas of commerce, work and study. The necessity for roads grew and solutions for mass public transport became more expensive. The proportion of pavement in urban areas grew, which led to fewer rainwater permeable surfaces hence subsoil dryness. Green areas were diminished and their sustainability became difficult. Wildlife migrated or became extinct. In its favour, this model had the advantage of privacy, freedom to use one’s roof for light or for different uses, as in the case of lower-income homes, where it provided the versatility of gradual expansion from the interior, or increase in height.

On the other hand there was also what the European modern movement proposed, spearheaded by the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM): vertical collective housing, detached from the ground on columns that would open up the space, leaving the terrain untouched by using the space above it. A green roof would replace the shadow cast by the building as a place for communing. Death of the corridor street, Le Corbusier proclaimed. Space, sun, and green areas must be used.

The multiple family housing building in Marseille summed up the characteristics of the approach. It is like gathering an entire town together, adequately mixing the individual and the collective, and housing everyone in cells of the same hive, thus liberating the space for the collective enjoyment of community services. Profound changes in architectonic possibilities occurred with the technological advances of new materials and their application. Modernism went hand in hand with the structure of iron or reinforced concrete, like in row houses, which allowed the walls to be separate and therefore release the façades. It also allowed for a multi-stories building on its own lot that was on open floor plates, including shelter for a roof garden.

Le Corbusier’s Pilot Plan for Bogotá, on which Samper worked, proposed this type of building for the center of the city. It was the antithesis of the traditional street with separate houses. The inhabitant would benefit

from the space, sky, and green conditions, but the construction was interrupted and became disconnected and fractioned. Only a few samples, such as the Centro Urbano Antonio Nariño, were built using this model.

People from Bogotá have always been closer to the United States than Europe, and its influence increased in the second half of the 20th century when travelling became easier, and even more, due to the great influence of TV and film. The American way of life, image, fashion, and even cuisine, became the paradigm to imitate if one wanted to climb the social ladder. During the first half of the century, the influence brought by a few architects educated in England and France left some isolated examples originally built for the gentry.

With access to information, the popular preference became the North American city-garden, including architectonic styles that were locally renamed American colonial or Californian. It was like a regression to the 19th century, in opposition to the modern style described as cubist and graceless.

Urban norms determine the way in which a city is built. It was clear that political measures needed to be taken for the development of Bogotá.

Germán Samper was a pioneer in the vision of that future. He began to work on a new model that took from and understood both worlds. How to make a higher-density city of low height and create a community that valued the collective over the individual? Why keep proposing streets of individual houses on independent lots, which lacked the communal spaces and services needed to improve the quality of life and co-existence? The new model was tested between 1958 and 1962 with the directed self-building project La Fragua, where the architect approached the client as a doctor would his patients: asking, examining, determining what the patient feels, in order to understand what is needed instead of approaching with the usual arrogance of “knowing” what they need and want. Germán Samper teaches us, as described in detail in the chapter Autoconstrucción Dirigida (Directed Self-building) in the book, La Evolución de la Vivienda (about the evolution of low-income housing), how to promote, support, and direct a communal effort for liveable creations and social cohesion.

The fundamental idea which Samper arrived at, and from which he built his urban model, consisted of increasing density in low height construction without abandoning contact with earth and public spaces, unlike tall and industrialized constructions which are technologically more complex and out of reach for low income communities. If urban land with services is scarce and we do not want to wildly increase its footprint on the territory, we must increase the density in the already built areas and the ones that can be developed. With this, Germán Samper was ahead of his time, and in tune with the current preoccupation with energy efficiency and environmental responsibility.

In 1966 Germán began to develop a Decalogue, which contains the commandments for the new system of living better. A new urban planning model was born, one that sought to solve the apparent opposition between the individual and the collective, which was recognized in the Colombian exhibition of architecture “Architectures Colombiennes” at the Georges Pompidou center in Paris (1981): The collective space must be the primary protagonist. It does not only appear first in the plan, but it becomes the agent of the complex’s composition. Open space for everyone, in a central location, not only on the

periphery, with a shape and form that allows it a true vocation for its function; whether sports, public gatherings, recreation or simply resting. It is a democratic space where all inhabitats have the same rights and obligations, where children learn to share and respect, to coexist and value, and to be citizens.

Private area was reduced to what is necessary for the house, and individual areas were transformed into collective areas with suitable proportions.

Everyone gives, everyone gains. It was understood that in this way everyone had access to a quality of living that they would not have had individually due to land value, or location in the city. The objective was to have a better quality of life, unattainable individually.

Urban enclosures took shape, spaces of enjoyable and comprehensible scale that, due to their magnitude, were easy to maintain by the same community without suffering from overflowing budgets or institutional neglect.

The automobile is an intruder on the human space. It was a fantastic development that changed the 20th century, but should remain adjacent and clustered apart from open areas. It is not a question of continuing street networks to the interior of the properties, but about understanding the incompatibilities between one and the other. Even if one must walk to the living area, this walk should take place on pedestrian paths in open spaces surrounded with trees.

The general process was one of building apartments, but laid down, where instead of being one house on top of another one, they are side by side, without losing the benefit of contact with the ground and the possibility of the “sun and sky”. The search for security was an important factor in the change from the single isolated family house to apartment buildings equipped with a doorman. “I do not want to be a slave to my house anymore, I want to be able to leave and be calm”. Clusters of housing could achieve this tranquillity without sacrificing other benefits. They could be built taking into account the diversity and individuality of the families whilst simultaneously benefiting from standardized building processes to streamline costs and create rules in regards to future interventions for the betterment of the complex in general, as well as for individual and collective heritage.

Germán created a scheme of city building that, at the time, was not thought of by the Planning legislation; made for the development of houses and buildings on individual lots, with a front yard, side and rear isolates, maximum height, construction and occupancy rates. When article 82 of 1967, proposed by Germán Samper as Councilor, was put into effect, the possibility of applying it on a large scale opened up. Nevertheless, on several occasions it was misunderstood or manipulated, mainly in response to market pressures and land costs.

The seventies and eighties were the decades that really saw Germán’s logic applied, and the density of the city almost tripled. This growth was within already developed areas where the capacity of existing urbanizations was increased. For example, in sector R0 zoning of 20 x 40 meter lots could be linked together instead of building isolated houses. Groups of nine to twelve houses could be built with greater potential for social cohesion. Inhabitants would enjoy a living area the size of an apartment, but with large-scale collective open space areas with superb features. The urban skyline would fit within the

existing regulations, two to three stories maximum. The density would remain low, releasing green areas for environmental protection.

Though it left wonderful examples of a friendly and sustainable city, it was a proposal that was short-lived. By decree, those same lots moved to fourstories, then to five, and then to seven. Density increased, the thickness of the walls decreased. The owners of townhouses became “instant millionaires”, sold their houses and moved to penthouses. Everything began to be demolished, erasing the memory and scale, giving way to the growing city: dense, at the verge of self-destruction, in which the streets did not have a skyline with proper proportions of height and width to let the sun in. Green areas were reduced to front yards, since the interior was fully paved. Privacy disappeared, and the view was covered behind curtains closed to hide from the inevitable view of neighbours.

Failed projects such as the Alhambra in 1970 showed how entrenched society was in management, fear of change, and how the inhabitants’ capacity to understand and quickly accept the benefits offered by living in group-complexes was consistently underestimated. For business it was easier to do what they considered safe despite of being shown the comparative economic benefits.

Urban planning creates successive spaces along boulevards alternating with roadways that, with the sinuosity of rivers, where façades appear with surprises and give character to dwellings and places where public life is easily reborn. It is a structure large and important enough that it becomes a new urban model, which can be replicated and intertwined without interrupting the fluidity in communication.

Making sure that humanizing values prevail, the Colsubsidio Citadel continues to offer a means and to give hope for us to build the best possible dwellings of the 21st century. Many of us architects attempted this when Samper proposed it several years ago as a general policy that would spread throughout the entire city. A family who wants to build a house nowadays would have to go to the suburbs. Samper’s legacy offers a solution that remains available to all, it is still available, and is not an opportunity we lost.

Other projects did succeed, such as Las Brujas, in Medellín, which allowed the direct participation of landowners in finishing their homes, with the benefit of starting from a free urban layout and in accordance with the topography. The PREVI of Lima revealed that the essential invariables necessary to create an effective housing grouping, according to the characteristic proposed

by Germán, did not require a specific place or social stratum to have a high value of universality.

To make the construction of social housing viable, promoters nowadays have been attacking one cost component only: the area. Buildings are getting smaller and smaller, leaving aside other variables which are considered superfluous, such as the right to enjoy collective areas, open space, and satisfactory living conditions. Frequently, the idea of clusters of housing is not properly understood and it is thought of as enclosed urban islands of enormous proportions, exclusive and disconnected, interrupting the continuous flow of the city.

This was not what Germán dreamed of; he proposed an open city formed of parapet walks, human in scale.

Real estate speculators went too far, which resulted in a low quality common denominator, which they disguised with costly and sophisticated interior finishes while sacrificing what was essential, such as a public open space and contact with nature.

We architects cannot fully make the city we dream of, but we win some battles and a few brushstrokes are left here and there. Germán Samper has left several. His neighborhoods are established in structured, balanced, and orderly areas within the city. The neighborhood of Colsubsidio has the explicit purpose of prioritizing human beings when building their dwellings.

The complex contemplates the order between the parts and the whole, from individual housing to urban structure in its totality. To achieve this, attitudes were determined in regards to the space given to the pedestrian, the balance between density and area occupation, the creation of lively and varied public urban dwellings, and the harmonic distribution of housing clusters complemented by facilities, community services, and parks.

Las Brujas, Medellín.

La Fragua, a Self-building Neighborhood In the company of Yolanda Martínez Samper Bogota, Colombia, 1958 Client: Sociedad Mutuaria de Auto-Construcción La Fragua Scope of work: Planning 100 housing units Area: 38.750 sq.ft.

Beginning in 1958, for a period of three years, a collective and community oriented initiative was carried out in the low-income neighborhood of La Fragua, in Bogotá. The project was spearheaded by Yolanda Martínez Samper and designed by Germán Samper, with the consultation of architect René Eyheralde and the Centro Interamericano de Vivienda (CINVA) (Inter-American Housing Centre). A plot of land was offered by The Institute of Territorial Credit (ICT), which also granted loans for the purchase of the necessary building materials. The main objective of this initiative consisted in the building of community homes that were geared towards low-income families.

Construction was executed by means of a system called ‘self-building,’ known in other countries as ‘self effort and mutual help.’ Administration, management, design, and construction at the time did not have any local precedents. Proving to be a successful system it became, over time, a nationwide policy in solving the lack of housing in low-income communities.

The project encompassed two square blocks, appointed by The Institute of Territorial Credit, for residential urbanization. Originally, the Institute’s plan was to have each block consisting of 20 lots and an intermediate street. Germán Samper, however, eliminated the central street thus increasing the initial predicted density from 40 to 100 houses, without having to increase the number of stories. The structures became grouped in a complex that resembled a township; including pedestrian streets and small gathering squares, creating a small community at human scale.

With Germán’s proposal the size of each lot was reduced and the areas for each structure were carefully calculated and systematically distributed. These factors directly benefitted families by reducing the costs of purchasing land and the subsequent construction that was to take place. The project thus became a model which, if applied to the entire city, could offer obvious economic merit. For Samper, the outcome of this urbanization project sparked what was to become a lifelong professional interest in, and fascination with such development.

Each structure was planned as a one level house with a gabled roof that could later allow for the construction of an attic. The floor plan contained a small living room and dining area, three bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchen. Apart from the main entrance, each house came with an additional point of access that led to a workspace. The family could either utilize the space for production, or rent it out, either way, increasing the family’s potential income.

While some houses are still in their original state, the great majority have been affected by transformations, such as the increase in height up to three floors. With these measures in effect the housing plan became a true engine of development for the families living there. La Fragua was the first fixed allocation for a considerable number of its inhabitants who were affected by having to constantly rent, and over time could become a productive space that could generate income either through renting out extra space or using it for work. Nowadays those posterior rooms house retail spaces, workshops, or have become expansions to the house. Moreover, the progress of the community becomes highly apparent with the transformation of buildings and various modes of occupancy. It can be perceived as a success if one understands that La Fragua was thought of not only as a living space, but also as a model for those who seek to better the quality of life of its inhabitants.

O

ne day in March 1958 I was on my way home when Ángel María, our driver, asked me: Do you think that Mr. Samper could make some designs for my house?

La Fragua

Of course he would, I answered. Where do you plan on building it?

I don’t know. I don’t have the land yet.

Yolanda Martínez de Samper

Do you have the money?

No, he answered. But it’s not important. I’m sure I’ll get it.

He proceeded to speak eloquently about the need to obtain his own home, one that was not a rental, and the manner in which he would pursue it.

I had an entire plan, written in a notebook, on how to organize a team.

The plan was inspired by the activities of a Belgian group called The Beavers, who, after the Second World War, rebuilt their cities in an effort to rebuild their lives. I told Ángel María this story and invited him to my home to explain the idea I had in mind. I drew it on the blackboard in the hallway, where the children played with colored chalks. The plan consisted of a square divided into 4 spaces with independent entrances into every space. I told him to find three friends or family members, buy a lot with them and build their home, with the facilities in the middle to save on sewage and such.

In less than a week he introduced me to 7 family members, and later at least 20 showed up! I was scared because I only had one idea, one design, but I lacked the resources to put it into practice.

During this time Germán, my husband, had a jazz group that met at our house every Saturday afternoon. It was the idea of René Eyheralde, a Chilean architect and wonderful clarinet player. René was the director of an Organization of American States (OAS) program that was being promoted at the Centro Interamericano de Vivienda (CINVA) (Inter-American Housing Centre). In Chile, the system of self-building was very successful. He told me how to do the initial research forms, and I in turn showed the families. He introduced me to a lawyer who helped the families become a legal entity so they would be able to hire or contract as a group. He also put me in touch with the Instituto de Crédito Territorial (ICT) (a low-lncome housing credit institution), whose manager, Aníbal López Trujillo, called to tell me that my project was very interesting to him and that he would support it. If it was successful, he would dedicate 75% of the ICT budget to similar programs.

Immediately, Germán went to work and, with René, we organized a lecture at the CINVA to formally launch the La Fragua program in Bogotá.

The neighborhood would cover 2 blocks of a large project, which the ICT was to develop on the grounds of an old estate. It was very well located on the outskirts of the city at the time, and now sits between 30th and 31st Avenues, and 16th and 17th Streets, next to the neighborhood’s main plaza.

The Social Work Department of the ICT, under the direction of Lola Rocha and Nina Chávez de Santa Cruz, was in charge of conducting the first search for families. Germán contributed a new urban design, which increased the housing density the ICT had expected from 42 individual units to 96.

Each private house had two entryways, and he also included a community hall and four small courtyards in the plan.

Germán Samper and Yolanda Martínez de Samper

166

Many neighborhoods around the country have been designed using this concept. La Fragua, however, still holds a special place for us, because after 50 years we are still in touch with 19 of the owners. La Fragua continues to be a landmark in my life.

inherent in the present moment. Being a realist is not being a pessimist. Being a realist means knowing and evaluating the resources available to start a project that requires effort and perseverance, without having to face the challenge of acting without guidance and specific purpose.

The Community Action Board of La Fragua has done its work in full awareness of having been the first project of its kind in Bogotá, and of having served as an example that stimulated enthusiasm for new communities. Today they have a church the size of a cathedral, with a huge plaza for gatherings in front of it, with 4 grassy courtyards and trees between the buildings, all of which are in the original space granted by the ICT.

The main resource in this type of community movement is confidence in oneself and in the support of others, what we called in that period of time self-effort and mutual aid.

It is important to highlight several elements of this organization: The architectural and urban design and the action of the beneficiaries.

The social work that prepares, accompanies, and leads the action of groups that make up self-building programs is fundamental for the success of these programs. Though the promotion and coordination of this project was my responsibility, the model we created served to demonstrate what people are able to accomplish when they discover themselves and become organized.

When visiting the families we see their evolution and progress from generation to generation. The initial occupants were in the skilled trade category: musicians, bakers, builders, cobblers, tailors, teachers, accountants, etc. Their children went to elementary school and high school in the neighborhood, and their grandchildren are university students, on principle.

From an economic point of view, all occupants took advantage of having two separate entryways, which allowed them to build extensions (in some cases several stories high) on both sides. Many sold their houses and moved to other neighborhoods in the city or elsewhere.

Urban and architectural design is one thing, and the proper execution of construction is another. Many people were enthusiastic about building, but were not properly prepared for the arduous and specific tasks of digging trenches for foundations, stacking bricks for walls, and even harder tasks such as erecting ridgepoles and ceilings, or installing doors and windows. We learned that when it comes to construction it was necessary to seek the help of experts. It was then that several architectural firms, friends of ours, offered a qualified builder to help us make progress during the week. On weekends, the volunteer beneficiaries of the program did the work, guided by these same experts.

The first stage, built from 1959 to 1961, started with the ICT thanks to a contribution of 25 million pesos donated by Colsubsidio, which at that time was managed by Roberto Arias Pérez. The second stage was initiated in 1962, with the help of the ANDI (National Association of Colombian Entrepreneurs), when many architectural firms, with help from US President Kennedy’s program Alliance for Progress Point IV, financed the final 42 homes. An energetic community action movement took root with the example of La Fragua, which had become an example to be followed within the country and even in neighboring countries.

An environment of solidarity and enthusiasm was created; it was very stimulating for everyone involved, so much so that other groups of self-building were formed, such as those in Los Laches and El Tejar, two large neighborhoods that emerged under the initiatives of their own leaders and where we were also invited to collaborate. Thirty-five houses were also built in San Isidro.

The model of “directed self-building” expanded into other types of community work, such as the construction of schools and village roads. The program “La Acción Comunal” (Community Action) was born; an initiative which the Mayor of Bogotá (architect Jorge Gaitán Cortés, who frequently visited us during the construction of La Fragua), understood and formalized in an agreement with the Bogotá City Council, back when he was a councilman. Once he became the Major he promoted this program with great enthusiasm and skill.

For me, La Fragua has many facets: first of all, the people. Then, our proposal, with institutional backing from CINVA and ICT. Then, the work, where we learned to overcome many different situations. Perhaps the most important was to have demonstrated the meaning of the dignity of humans in all their possibilities. What is required is the coordination of will and effort to achieve wonderful results, on the basis of knowing that we are all capable.

La Acción Comunal was the result of the integration of three dynamic elements of society: the labor and manpower of homeowners, the support and skill of trained professionals, and all of the volunteers. The work of these three elements was co-ordinated by a state agency, which was equipped to offer loans and long-term portfolio management. Around that same time, during the weekends, Jorge Gaitán, Germán and I chaired community boards, which were proliferating everywhere. It was very exciting to feel the enthusiasm, decisiveness, and commitment of the people involved in these projects.

Finally, the effect of this model, which promoted personal and collective improvement, increased exponentially, stimulating both the people involved and strangers. It marked us with a stamp of research and service, which has accompanied us all our lives.

During that time, we were connected with the Oficina de Rehabilitación de la Presidencia de la República (Rehabilitation Office of the Presidency of the Republic) where we received the unconditional support of José Gómez Pinzón. From then on our project became a government model, which started to multiply throughout the country, first in Cali with the Agua Blanca neighborhood; then in Cartagena where it was adopted by the bishop and a group of women who promote social work; and then in Barranquilla. The model was put into practice throughout the country and promoted by the private sector.

This is when I learned the value of triggering the awareness of being able, which was what I insisted upon to both men and women when preparing them for the hard work that self-building entails; faith and discipline.

The awareness of being able is, without a doubt, the starting point for any enterprise that has a vision of the future, along with recognition of the difficulties 167

In 11 of these back rooms a provisional school for 850 was organized, while the actual school, with excellent facilities, was built in the main square of the neighborhood.

There is an aspect of self-building that is impossible to describe and is only understood when seeing the transformation of the people involved and hearing their stories - people who come from precarious situations full of difficulties and need. Seeing their smiles and the joy that they could not fully express was an indescribable experience that, even with the passage of time, cannot be forgotten. Seeing, for example, little girls wearing their best dresses while carrying bricks to a wheelbarrow, which is being pushed, with difficulty, by a young man. Every member of the family was an active participant during those weekends where everyone came out to help. Families would bring their lunches on Saturdays and Sundays and make communal picnics, taking turns so that the work that the experts had assigned to them was not interrupted.

Their help did not greatly advance the project, but it was necessary and allowed them to build, maintaining our initial motto of self-effort and mutual aid.

Finally, I must give recognition to an event that, for me, was the source of the miracle of La Fragua. I am referring to a very special blessing that Pius XII gave Germán and I in 1950 at Castel Gandolfo.

The Pope entered from our left and greeted each of several couples with a blessing and the gift of a rosary. When our turn came, he asked us, in Italian: De dove? (Where are you from?)

We answered – from Colombia, South America.

Immediately he started to speak in perfect Spanish, since he had been the Apostolic Nuncio in Argentina.

Today, La Acción Comunal is a state organization with over 25,000 Boards throughout the country. La Fragua has fulfilled the role determined by its name: ‘fragua’ means ‘forge’ in English. La Fragua forged a national awareness of capability, with self-effort and mutual aid, to solve the problem of housing faced by many people throughout the country.

Ah! Colombia! A Catholic country. How are things going after the revolution? He was referring to the Bogotazo, the riots of 9 of April 1948.

You seem to be newlyweds. Right? I will give you a very special blessing.

We knelt and received our blessing. What was extraordinary was that as he was moving away from us and on to the next couple, he came back to us and solemnly said:

The Colombian Model, as Mexico called it, began to spread throughout the continent. In Venezuela, during the government of President Caldera, Arístides Calvani and his wife Adelita promoted Acción Popular following the guidelines established in Colombia. These guidelines were also applied to projects in Cordoba, Argentina, and in El Callao, Peru.

I want to give you both another very special blessing.

We knelt again and received this second blessing with much anointing.

Nobody else in the room got a second blessing. That gesture was for us alone.

In 1964, I was invited to Switzerland to attend the International Women’s Congress taking place in Interlaken. There I presented a report edited with the help of Carlos Martinez Jiménez, the director of PROA, a very well known architectural magazine in Colombia. The enthusiasm that this report raised was incredible. Later on, I found out that Switzerland was promoting similar projects in Africa, particularly in Liberia. I also heard from a participant at the Congress in Switzerland that Angola had followed our model and had great success. From the Vatican, the Colombian Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, had invited me to Toronto, Canada, for the International Congress of the Global Association for The Family, with its headquarters in Rome. There I presented a paper entitled La Vivienda Productiva, (Productive Housing) which was very successful. What I found more interesting was that my presence in Toronto had repercussions in Monterrey, Mexico. A Mexican journalist who had attended the Congress encouraged the Garza Villarreal family to start a housing program in Mexico like ours in Colombia. They invited me to Monterrey twice and evidently followed the guidelines I gave them, since there now exists a replica of La Fragua as a model that they wish to continue.

I have always thought that moment was the initiation of our experiences in housing, self-building and community action in Colombia. It is important to remember that Pius XII was called the Pope of Housing, since he helped to promote it after the Second World War. Since those times, a national consciousness of cooperation and a spontaneous sense of solidarity have been created in the country. This has influenced the way of being of Colombians, who are internationally known for their capacity for collaboration and leadership.

At the beginning, when the ICT gave us the two big blocks for the project, they had designated only 42 houses for the space. Germán managed to design a neighborhood for 96 houses, four small plazas, and a community hall. This was already a tremendous increase of urban density, but what was truly effective was having private access to each of the two areas from each house, which covered over 12 meters deep and 7 meters wide.

This plan arose from the necessity of families who needed independent shelter while they built their homes. These temporary rooms where placed on the opposite side of the courtyard, but over time they became two living spaces instead of just one, and owners were able to put one up for rent. This allowed them to generate income without affecting the wellbeing of the family.

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Experimental Project of Housing PREVI Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Lima, Peru, 1969 Client: Municipality of Lima – United Nations Advisor: architect Urbano Ripoll Scope of work: Planning 1500 housing units In 1969, the then president of Peru, architect Fernando Belaunde Terry, supported by the United Nations, summoned an international competition for architectonic ideas to petition for lowincome neighborhoods of Latin America. British architect Peter Land was in charge of creating the parameters of the competition, selecting the international candidates to be invited, directing construction of the proposed prototypes. The stipulations of the contest required the design of 1500 housing units, with full creative freedom, following these three parameters: firstly, the housing units should be individual and smaller in area in order to achieve the highest possible density of overall inhabitants.

Multifamily housing was not to be considered. Secondly, the sponsors would build the first stage of living quarters and the inhabitants would build the second stage. Lastly, the project would promote the use of new construction technologies or the betterment of traditional ones.

Internationally renowned firms were invited to the contest, such as Kikutake, Maki, and Kurokawa from Japan, Christopher Alexander from the United States, Toivo Korhonen from Finland, Hansen and Hatloy from Poland, Herbert Ohl from Germány, Atelier 5 from Switzerland, Iñiguez de Onzoño and Vásquez de Castro from Spain, Candilis, Josic, and Woods from France, James Stirling from England, Aldo van Eyk from Holland, Charles Correa from India, and Esguerra, Sáenz, and Samper, along with Urbano Ripoll from Colombia.

By then, the work realized by the firm and its postulates coincided and related with the stipulations put forth by the competition. In Colombia, projects such as La Fragua demonstrated that low-income housing of high density was fully viable and productive. This was an exceptional opportunity to challenge preceding theoretical exercises with a bona fide case An exceptional location was found in downtown Lima, which served as a starting point for the proposed development. An old sumptuary mansion named ‘Quinta Heeren’ had been conserved on undeveloped terrain. Within these grounds a group of townhouses formed a high-density complex, equivalent to a super-block surrounded by conventional blocks. A forest, in which domestic animals wondered freely, was located towards the centre of the complex.

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The proposal submitted by the Colombians departed from the design of small plots (9 x 9 meters each OR 96.87 x 98.87) in the interior of a larger lot (80m x 80m OR 861.11ft x 861.11ft). Just as on a board game where pieces are arranged on a playing field, the design sought to juxtapose the differing volumes with each section to find variants and spatial abundance in the interstices and the exterior spaces.

Squared lots were used because they offered, in a reduced area, ample frontage on the street, and they allowed for the combination of that which is built while alternatively incorporating patio areas, thus creating four different typologies. The system provided a general unity in regards to the variety of spaces it enabled.

By grouping these lots, a super-block was formed with a large central space for community services. All together, three of these super-blocks covered the entire available terrain. The complex’s scalar transitions from smaller lot, to bigger lot, to super-block, created a cogent urban structure that is simple, repeatable, and of broad applicability.

The plan also proposed the circulation of vehicles on the periphery of the super-blocks, with parking lots on a corner, and pedestrian circulation, which was based on a central axis that integrated the open spaces and the interior community services. Its pedestrian routes sought to be especially enjoyable and varied, creating an interrelation within the neighborhoods. The project, on a human level, stimulated coexistence.

In regards to the construction and materials used, the proposal was based on improving local technologies, which was the most realistic and viable approach. The use of varied colors and unique outdoor furniture identified each grouping, seeking to add individuality within a system of repetitive construction.

Currently, new architectonic theories are grounded in the reinterpretation of local realities.

The contest PREVI in its entirety was a success due to the variety of proposed solutions. It became a pioneering project for the policies of the Ministry of Housing in Peru. After announcing Herbert Ohl of GermĂĄny, Atelier 5 of Switzerland, and Kikutake, Maki, and Kurokawa of Japan as winners, it was decided that a complex was to be built that had a sample from every submitted proposal.

PREVI signified an international attitude change in the way of approaching high-density housing. It was a shift from the postulation of the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) where freestanding buildings were grouped together, PREVI sought to create urban space with single-family units.

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PREVI, general view. Samples of all the proposals were built for a total of 500 houses.

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PREVI. Esguerra, Sรกenz and Samper built project

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Las Brujas Housing Cluster With Tomás Neu and Felipe Muñoz Medellín, Colombia, 1985 Client: Álvaro Villa Scope of work: Planning 62 houses Area: 77.000 sq.ft.

Las Brujas is a complex of houses of varying heights, loosely and freely arranged over an inclined terrain with abundant vegetation located in the sorroundings of Medellín. Two and three story homes succeed each other as non-aligned ornaments adapted to the slope of the terrain.

The houses create a mixed complex in which some volumes advance as others recede, and some rise as others drop. Evoking the most primordial and elementary language of the home, the units have gabled roofs and the same squared form in their windows. These are arranged one over the other in the center of the facades, emphasizing verticality. The sequential disposition of high and low houses emulates a family continuity composed of mothers and fathers by the sides of their children.

With a playful and cheerful appearance, each unit demonstrates the versatility of a habitation model conceived on a floor plan of great simplicity. A rectangular hall without walls gathers the social and private spaces of the home, and a more slender and narrow rectangular hall by to the main one contains services and circulation areas. This project combines rationality and spatial economy made visible in the floor plan, with emotions made visible in contours and elevation.

To the familiarity evoked by the house volumes are added the warmth of exposed bricks on facades and pavements and the emerging freshness of the abundant surrounding vegetation. The homes, perfectly finished on the outside, are delivered unfinished inside so that future owners can adapt them to their own needs and budgets.

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This group stands out for the sensible creation of intermediate property between the public and private spheres, and because it resolves the contradiction between the individual and the collective based on proper management of scale and the right balance between open and built spaces. In the condominium, expenses are shared and changes implemented by consensus, which leads to very good maintenance for the group. Common areas stimulate community life, social integration and solidarity. The complex encircles a microcosm in which everything outside it becomes familiar and where the natural surroundings create an ideal setting for human activity.

Urban Space in the Work of Germán Samper Fernando Jiménez Mantilla Colombia and the profession of architecture in the context of urban planning and modern architecture

T

he contributions of Germán Samper Gnecco as an architect, urban planner, and politician in the national and international realm, have been inestimable. He has played an invaluable role, pioneering the process of modernization in the urban and architectural setting of the country. As a graduate from the Faculty of Architecture, Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 1947, he is part of the first group of young Colombian professionals educated in the dynamics of advanced architectural movements in the western world.

The modernization of the State, led by President Alfonso López Pumarejo during his first term (1934-1938), included as one of its major governmental initiatives, the establishing of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia as an autonomous entity, created by virtue of law 68 in 1935. It came into effect in 1936 under the direction of the pedagogue Fritz Karsen, an expert in university organization, and the architect Leopoldo Rother, who was in charge of planning the campus and was also a member of the first professorial body for the professional program at the newly established Faculty of Architecture.

In 1936 the construction of the campus began on 112 hectares located at the western end of the city, under Karsen’s concept of integrated academic structure, which Rother translated literally by following the urban and architectural precepts of the Bauhaus school developed by Walter Gropius in Germány. The Faculty of Architecture building was the first to be completed. Its architectonic expression resembles that of the International Style. Academic activities began in 1938.

The International Style was a term which originated from a book of the same name by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, written to record the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1932. The exhibit and book identified, categorized and expanded upon characteristics common to Modernism around the world. Hitchcock and Johnson’s aim was to define a style of the times. They identified three different principles: the expression of volume rather than mass, balance rather than preconceived symmetry, and the expulsion of applied ornament. Previous uses of the term in the same context can be attributed to Walter Gropius in Internationale Architektur.

The tendencies of new modern architecture were entrenched in the recently founded Faculty, and disseminated in classrooms by foreign professors and nationals who had studied abroad. Students adopted and vehemently defended these ideas; they followed, word for word, European and North American periodicals, magazines and books. The professional work of Le Corbusier, Gropius, Van der Rohe, Aalto, Johnson, Sert, Costa, and Niemeyer were gaining recognition in the academic realm. In 1947 Le Corbusier visited Bogotá for the first time; he had travelled from New York, where he had participated in the design of the United Nations building along with Oscar Niemeyer. Students greeted the architect at the Techo airport saying: Down with the Academy, long live Le Corbusier! His name remains embedded in the memories of then future Colombian architects.

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La Fragua

It was in this environment, after graduating from the Faculty of Architecture of La Universidad Nacional in 1947, that the architect Germán Samper Gnecco began his professional life. Shortly after graduating he explored the possibility of working at Le Corbusier’s studio in Paris, and from 1948-1953, he collaborated with him on the Pilot Plan for Urban Development in Bogotá, and subsequently on the urban and architectural project of Chandigarh, new capital of the Punjab province in India.

At the beginning of the 60s, Bogotá D.C. had a population that already exceeded one million habitants, and an urbanized area of almost 8,000 hectares.

It was a horizontal city comprised of one-story and two-stories “houses” with very few neighborhoods where urban regulations allowed for the construction of apartment buildings (generally four-stories high) on specific lots. This was in response to an emerging trend to house families in search of a new urban lifestyle.

The urban design consisted of blocks whose dimensions were determined by the size of the lots, from 70m2 to 800m2, forming rectangular blocks of 40 x 90m or square blocks of 90x90m. These corresponded to different population groups according to their socioeconomic status and their ability to pay. A wonderful photographic account of this era in Bogotá can be viewed in the archive of aerial photographs taken by the Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi (IGAC).

Germán Samper as the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Universidad de los Andes From 1955 to 1958 Germán Samper was Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Universidad de Los Andes. During that time, he developed professional projects with his design firm and its partners, Esguerra, Sáenz, Urdaneta, and Suarez. His experience as Dean marked the academic consolidation of the faculty initiated by his predecessors, Jorge Gaitán Cortes, 1949-1951, graduate architect from the Universidad Nacional in 1942, with postgraduate studies at Yale University in 1944; and Francisco Pizano de Brigard, 1952-1954, graduate architect from the Universidad Nacional, 1943-1946 and Michigan University, 1946-1949. This period marked the graduation of the first group of Uni-Andes students and the fifth year since the initiation, in 1949, of academic activities at the University.

The density per lot within the city fluctuated between 10 lots per hectare in high-income areas, (many with a front yard and generous lateral and posterior gardens), and 50 lots per hectare in low-income areas; these lots were built close to the sidewalk and had a posterior patio. With this scheme, the city had private houses on individual lots with surrounding roads as the only element of public space, turning these structures and the politics of density, into elements of social segregation. In some neighborhoods there was a central common area, a park, a square, and usually a church. The urban enclosure ended abruptly at the sidewalk immediately adjacent to the roadway; there was no space for daily activities on a communal level.

In his tenure as head of the Faculty, it consolidated its orientation to the Le Corbusier schoo, which was its origin from the start of academic programs under the preceding deans Gaitán Cortés and Pizano, who were experts and enthusiasts even before the urban and architectural expositions spread internationally. They were followers of the CIAM postulates in the Athens Charter of 1933, and of Le Corbusier’s work, in association with his colleague Jose Luís Sert, in the completion and broad dissemination of the plans for Bogotá. These were the Pilot Plan of Le Corbusier in 1950 and the Regulatory Plan of Wienner and Sert in 1953.

Very close to the completion of Wienner and Sert’s Regulatory Plan, in 1954, the construction of the Centro Urbano Antonio Nariño (CUAN), was initiated. This was a project inspired by Le Corbusier’s ideas and conducted by the Public Works Department. It had 1,000 dwellings on a 14 hectare lot, developed with 12 stories buildings placed on pillars, and a density of 60 housing units per hectare. It was located in the middle of a large park, and could have been a “modern” urban dwelling except that it couldn’t be occupied until 1962, the year the law regulating horizontal property was passed. This was an unusual type of housing conceived with open public space comprising 80% of the total area; Bogotá was putting the principles of the Swiss architect into practice.

The new generation of students had been formed following the canons of the Swiss and Catalan masters of modern architecture, and now before them was Le Corbusier’s collaborator on the 5 year Pilot Plan for Bogotá and the urban projects for Chandigarh. Although the new Dean did not impose an implicit pursuit of the spirit of Le Corbusier, the students followed several of his urban proposals with admiration, from the Plan Voisin for the renovation of Paris, to La Ville Radieuse, or the plan for a contemporary city of three million inhabitants; from the proposals for intervention in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo to the Unité d’Habitacion in Marseilles; from the head office of the UN building in New York to the Civic Centers of Bogotá and Chandigarh.

In 1958 an experimental project for low-income families began in the neighborhood of La Fragua, Bogotá. The project was managed and promoted

by Yolanda Martínez Samper and the urban and architectural design was that of Germán Samper, with the technical support of CINVA, and land contributed by the ICT. This project was a starting point in the search for a new concept of how to “make a city,” a humanized city among large metropolitan agglomerations.

The project was completed in 1961 and planted a very important seed in regards to the process of investigation and implementation of various urban projects. La Fragua aimed to find the essence of an urban dwelling appropriate to the shape of the modern city in Colombia for over half a century.

Dean Samper’s academic and professional experience, along with his extensive participation in the architectural direction of the country and within the Sociedad Colombiana de Arquitectos, (Colombian Society of Architects) brought diverse young professionals to the Faculty. Some of them were graduates of the Universidad Nacional with complementary education in foreign schools, some brought new perspectives from European or North American Universities.

This first experiment emerged from the need to create suitable spaces for the development of community life, and introduced a new method of executing low cost progressive housing developments by means of self-building. It was 183

Housing Groupings. Study of Minimum Standards of Urbanization, Public Services and Community Services

implemented under a new concept, an enclosure on the scale of a primary residential block. This new space was formed by integrating two typical rectangular blocks from the original layout of the neighborhood, creating an internal network integrated by roads and pedestrian squares open to the surrounding roads, grouping smaller private lots of 100 dwellings per hectare, and providing optimal environmental conditions.

In the year 1970 the Study of Minimum Standards of Urbanization, Public Services and Community Services was conducted by the consulting firm Consultécnicos. It was originally commissioned by the Instituto de Credito Territorial and the Administrative Department of District Planning, with the subsequent participation of the National Planning Department.

Its impact called for reflection by the main popular housing official entities: BCH, ICT, and the Caja de Vivienda Popular, a group of urban planners, architects and private builders. The work of Germán Samper continued to be provocative, and his contributions remained constant. He worked simultaneously on alternate network schemes; his goal of breaking the state control of district regulations was fundamental to the successful implementation of the concept of the new urban dwelling. In 1966 Germán was elected councilor for the first of three consecutive terms. The district legislation under his leadership realized the specific rules for the development of housing clusters, through Agreement 82 of 1967.

Its objective was to establish realistic rules for urban planning that allowed for a corrective policy on existing substandard neighborhoods in urban areas of the country, through a progressive development of solutions and a preventive policy that would eliminate spontaneous solutions in unacceptable conditions. In conclusion, it was considered imperative to find solutions for housing and development standards that were more in keeping with the possibilities: those of the country and its people.

Consequently, the intention of the study was to reduce the costs of urbanization to a minimum that was consistent with a reasonable standard of living, in order to offer lower income families a realistic alternative within the law instead of having to resort to spontaneous solutions such as clandestine development or land invasion. The main criterion was the acceptance of solutions with modest requirements. Initially, this would correspond with a decent living standard and include provisions that would ensure its development in stages, the measure of which would be that the economic conditions of both its residents, and the community as a whole, would improve, until it could reach a final stage of standardized solutions.

The impact of the new legislation was immediate. The Departamento de Proyectos of the ICT finished the multi-family complex Pablo VI in mid-1968, and a year later the progressive urban housing development, Garcés Navas.

Both were projects where the potential of their design and quality of life became explicitly apparent thanks to the abolition of previous rules and the introduction of the concept that today we call “communal space”.

Experimental housing project, PREVI contest, Lima.

Simultaneously, an event of international coverage took place: sponsored by the United Nations, the government of Peru announced an international competition for affordable housing to be applied in various developing countries. The objective of the PREVI contest was to design a high-density community of 1,500 single-family housing units, at the time called “high density, low height constructions”, on a 36 hectare lot. Germán Samper and his firm, Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper, with the collaboration of the architect Urbano Ripoll, were invited to participate in the competition.

In regards to economic aspects and the identification of the housing shortage problem, the study was led by the engineer and economist Aníbal López Trujillo. Spatial aspects, the conceptualization of alternative solutions, and proposals for urban design and architecture were in the hands of urban architect Germán Samper. Additionally, the study included aspects of demography and urban planning, studies and proposals for public water services, sewage, energy, and transportation infrastructure, public transit and soil.

The hard conclusion of the study on resolving the housing shortage for lower income populations, made ​​it necessary to accept incomplete solutions, and provided support for an evolution into a complete solution. This approach would lead to a solution in the form of “progressive development” in which the improvement would parallel the economic evolution of the owners and the investment capacity of the country and municipalities.

It was with this project that the idea of giving priority to the public space on an intimate scale between housing units emerged, reinterpreting La Fragua’s basic concept of the block. This new concept was called “urban enclosure”. The proposal took place at its base, in the utilization of a square lot of 81m2, which allowed for a greater variety of solutions for the housing unit, including productive space. The emphasis of the proposal was centered on a rich environmental and spatial network of external open communal areas, shaped by footpaths and pedestrian spaces within three major sectors of 12 hectares each, bounded peripherally by the main transportation network. The scheme emphasized the concentration of communal services at the center of the sectors, connected by pedestrian networks throughout the entire project.

This method was already known in the country from a decade earlier when the Instituto de Crédito Territorial implemented it, making complete urban projects with adequate provision of road infrastructure and areas for parks and green zones. It also allocated areas for providing community services, and technical and social assistance according to necessity. What had been implemented as an emergency measure was beginning to show its validity in numerous urbanization programs and progressive developments. Today, 40 years later, they can be seen as fully developed urban areas that are part of the consolidated city, socially and economically integrated.

This project put into practice the investigation conducted by Germán in regards to increasing the density of low-height constructions, which formed the basis for the formulation and adoption of Municipal Agreement No. 82 of 1967, “housing clusters”, which would then be present in the Study of Minimum Standards of Housing. Throughout the last half century the impact of Germán’s constant work on the subject has resulted in increasingly complex models of varying scale, socio-economic condition, financial characteristics and urban function: the length and breadth of the country’s urban context.

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The urban aspect developed by the architect Germán Samper Gnecco on the theoretical model suggested the following objectives: • Allow increased density greater than 100 lots per hectare.

• Apply a principle of urban networks that is easily utilized, in an open system.

• Create a road network that would allow the coexistence of pedestrians and automobiles and the management of infrastructure networks.

• Develop a strategy for the location of state and private services.

• Create an urban structure that would allow for the progressive development of housing, public services infrastructure, and allocation of community services.

• Provide urban services to as many people as possible.

Consequently he put forward the following considerations: The urban structure has its origins in decisions made concerning the road network and general zoning; the first identifies areas of public use, the second defines the areas for private and communal use. The road design defines two types of urban design: an open system, which facilitates extension in any direction, obeying fixed and easily repeated rules, especially in areas of flat topography, and tends to be integrated with the general grid for interconnecting with the surrounding residential areas. The second type is a closed system that tends to be autonomous, defined by specific conditions in the topography or hydro system components and areas of environmental protection.

Likewise, the urban structure is formalized into two main components of intervention in a territory. The road network must correspond to three scales, according to their function, class, and character: to routes for fast vehicular traffic; to routes leading into sectors, and distribution channels within the sectors for pedestrian or mixed use; and to a system for subdividing the land into superblocks, blocks and super-lots. Additionally, a comprehensive exercise on various alternative groupings, square and rectangular lots and possible architectonic schemes for typical lots of 100m x 100m was developed.

In the conclusion of the study, a theoretical model was formulated, along with the development of alternatives for implementing alternate networks in order to use the aforementioned principles as a guideline for all quantitative and technical analyses. This model was developed on 20 hectares, divided into 4 super-blocks and 16 regular blocks with an open system, fueled by a double vehicular network and a pedestrian network that could be used to travel from any point to any other point, either by foot or by car.

Minimum Standard of Urbanization and the Alternate Networks proposal

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Urban Project. Real de Minas Citadel, Bucaramanga This large urban project was launched during the administration (1974-1978) of President Alfonso Lopez Michelson, in response to his political emphasis on social revolution which began with the program to close the gap. This initiative was intended to address the looming shortage in housing for middle and lower income families in Bucaramanga, and in all of the major urban centers of the country.

With concerted support from national, departmental, and municipal state bodies, high expectations were generated in several cities. Bogota, Barranquilla, and Bucaramanga took the lead in managing several projects, but the Real de Minas Citadel in Bucaramanga was the only project realized during that period of government. To that end, the Urban Development Corporation of Bucaramanga (EDUB) was formed; it was a public entity whose purpose was to fund a new type of urban community known as Integrated Urban Development, on the grounds of the former Gómez Niño airport.

The project was developed on the grounds of the old airport located on the southwestern edge of the Bucaramanga plateau, which was a new constituent of the central municipality of the Association of Municipalities of the Area of Bucaramanga, with an area of 120 hectares. The terrain is composed of a flat peninsula surrounded by deep ravines, a topography characteristic of the escarpment of a plateau, which has two thirds of its perimeter isolated from the urban area of the surrounding city. This peninsular nature determines its visual and functional relationship with the city.

However, even without functional or physical contact with the surroundings, they are still within the visual field. The northwestern side of the plot is practically a terrace and constitutes the center of the city. Historical landmarks of the city can be clearly distinguished from there, along with the silhouettes of newer buildings. There are also two types of visual relationship to the natural environment: a close one, which is possible only from the edges of the peninsula to the bottom of its natural depressions; and a distant one, in the four directions of the largest runways, visible from a greater distance.

A consortium of firms formed a study group for the urban structure plan and included; Technical Studies and Consultancy (ETA) of Bucaramanga, Consultécnicos and Patricio Samper & Associates of Bogotá. The urban architect Germán Samper Gnecco, with the support of landscape architect Alfonso Leyva Gálvis and a team from the Unit of Urban and Architectural Design, led the Urban Structure and Architectural Design project.

The Urban Structure and Architectural Design project was conditioned by the following determinants of natural resources and existing infrastructure: The valleys bordering the peninsula, with unpolluted running water and dense forest, were considered to be unique recreational resources of the city, and both accessibility and visual impact were emphasized, especially in the case of the El Bueno canyon, which stretches very near to the central area of the project. The only wooded area on the peninsula is located between the taxiway and the north end of the runway.

There are several major airport runways arranged in a cruciform; there is a 1400m north-south landing strip and a 1200m east-west takeoff runway. The taxi runway and its intersection at a 90-degree angle, very close to the epicenter of the land, interconnects them; it constitutes an important infrastructure road because of its potential as a hub to integrate surrounding elements, which are at a maximum pedestrian distance of 400 m. The facilities of the Gómez Niño airport, with the original passenger terminal of 1940, were used as the headquarters for the Urban Development Corporation offices, and the new terminal of 1960 was headquarters for the Municipal Office of Recovery.

The hangar served a covered coliseum for sports.

The Central Zone is the axis where two major trunk roads intersect at The Plaza Mayor, which is a quintessential public space and the location for the Ciudadela Real de Minas. It was decided that an octagonal space of 90 m. in diameter would be created, fully defined by a continuous building of 5 floors with internal arches on the first floor. This urban area was intended to be a meeting place for the CRM. The building frames public space, the protagonist for the urbanization of the citadel, and is a unique example of urban public-community space.

Eight main roads radiate from the Plaza Mayor at 45 degree angles.

These constitute a primary road structure, pedestrian walkways and linear green spaces, all accessible from urban areas of the existing city, right up to the undeveloped environmental spaces at the periphery of the plateau.

The study of land use typologies gave paramount emphasis to both residential and community services for the residents, with a special emphasis on social integration in the new urban space. This included a basis for legal access to home ownership, access to public services, and zoning for physical space within the citadel, which was an integral part of the surrounding neighborhoods.

Returning to the concepts used in the Study of Minimum Standards the following “technical models of density” were established: Single-family model: 53 m2 to 70 m2 = from 140 to 120 lots per hectare.

Multiple-family model: 70 m2 to 110 m2 = from 176 to 161 housing units per hectare.

Additionally the number and area requirements for social services, elementary, secondary and intermediate schools, health care, civil service, sanitation, fire and police stations were established.

Real de Minas Citadel is now a finished project as of 2010, 30 years after its inception. It complied with the majority of the urban and architectonic requirements it formulated in its plan. It is a complete urban structure with a high quality system for public space; the Plaza Mayor is an urban area that has become the pride of the city. The patterns of density and building heights were doubled in some of the last completed buildings. The objectives of providing community health services and education were achieved; today two institutions of higher education are based in its territory, which function as major centers of activity with several different minor units distributed throughout the housing complex.

Urban Project. Colsubsidio Citadel. Bogotá, D.C. The urban and architectural project led by the Colombian Family Benefit Fund, pursuant to Act 21 of 1982, which undertakes to allocate a percentage of their resources for housing to employees of member companies, commissioned the development of the project to the architect Germán Samper Gnecco for the realization of housing and complementary services on the scale of a large neighborhood within the city in 1985.

This neighborhood is located in the town of Engativá, northwest of Bogotá DC. It is bound to the south by the Autopista Medellín and to the north by a green zone, preserved by the management and environmental protection of the Juan Amarillo river. It is one of Germán Samper Gnecco’s most important contributions in urban and architectonic development of the Capital. The citadel was conceived under the concept of a “City within the City”, on 170 hectares of land.

Los Naranjos Plaza

The lot is located on the north side of the highway to Medellín. To the east is the Barrio Bolivia and to the west is the Barrio El Cortijo; both of these neighborhoods were already in development. Due to its surroundings the north to south circulation is very free and open while the east to west circulation required interconnected local road networks throughout the project to establish continuity.

The District Planning Department’s regulations demanded the opening of a main road running north to south, between Autopista Medellín to the south and 90th Street to the north. The obligatory creation of a system of secondary roads running east to west gave access to the networks of partially developed neighborhoods at the east and west sides of the plot.

The dominant design criteria proposed by the architects were defined with the following features: • Creation of an urban structure designed first and foremost on a human scale, where a linear pedestrian space would prevail as a main axis in the north-south direction, independent of space for roadways.

• Setting up a complementary road system in coexistence with pedestrian malls regulating the entire project and allowing the integration of already developed neighborhoods to the east and west.

Real de Minas Citadel Master Plan

• Design of urban space bounded buildings whose walls would spatially define the enclosures.

• Configuration of the city in superblocks and blocks defined as clusters, giving freedom of volumetric and architectonic expression, and providing an opportunity for a variety of communal areas.

Consequently, the urban scheme is summarized as follows: • To define a central pedestrian corridor running north to south between the highway and the Juan Amarillo river park, framed by roadways, shaping the design of the central urban elements.

• A configuration of three sectors into super-blocks, which would form the core of higher density housing, with adequate freedom of design.

• To introduce a succession of three roundabouts to the design of the super-blocks in order to facilitate peripheral traffic flow to the central corridor. This design feature is unique to the city.

• To supplement the traffic system with secondary roads running east-west between the surrounding neighborhoods throughout the project.

Undoubtedly, the urban and formal wealth of the project lies in the prominence it achieved in designing the core of the project, which brings together the main components of public space and the system of pedestrian and vehicular mobility of the citadel, a unique succession of urban events.

The civic plaza, located as a gateway and a reception venue adjacent to the highway to Medellín, is a must-see for its inhabitants and visitors. This circular space is a meeting place for the community with a kiosk and informal stalls.

The southern and northern roundabouts surround the main housing groups, defined by buildings whose walls spatially define the enclosures in a circular shape, and marked by roads crossing longitudinally through the central corridor of public space and pedestrian walkways, and transversely by the pedestrian roads that intersect in the square.

The central roundabout is crossed transversely by an east-west arterial road. This road segment was considered a private road with the possibility of being developed, and eventually allowed the construction of the Centro Comercial Unicentro de Occidente, articulated over the main pedestrian axis 20 years later.

The linear parks that run along the central axis of the project among the three roundabouts, and finish their journey in the Juan Amarillo Park, were designed as passive recreational spaces.

The Juan Amarillo Park, a protected environmental area, brings together the activities of a recreational park with fields for sports and a running track.

Community services are in a central area equally accessible by pedestrians from anywhere in the neighborhood. As home to the most important services of the Colsubsidio Comprehensive Education Center serving 3,200 students; it also has a large arena and an excellent library.

The wise decision of the promoter of the project allowed for the urban design to be led by the architect Germán Samper, along with the architectural design of its housing clusters. The design led to a suitable solution for the integration of public and private space.

Clusters of multi-family dwellings are designed to permit construction up to a five-stories limit. These buildings are under the control and administration of their users and continue to define the character of the city, and the relationship between public and private- communal spaces.

The architectural solution adopted was that of longitudinal buildings five floors high, without an elevator, and with an emphasis on the vertical rhythm of its façades and the introduction of the gable as an architectural accent. A gable is the top of the façade of a building, between the two sides of the roof; this way the façades are not flat but they have marked projections and textures. This architectural component was used extensively in Europe, especially England and the Netherlands. In Bogotá, gables were common on the English style homes of the 1930s and 40s and feature prominently in the architectural design of the Colsubsidio Citadel.

Due to the lower cost of these clustered single-family dwellings, they are home to families with lower incomes. This system of clustered housing encourages the development of urban community life in public spaces on a human scale. ***

The Work of Germán Samper and its Significance in the Urban Culture of the Country The conceptual richness of Germán Samper Gnecco’s urban work, embodied throughout his professional life in many projects, proposals, and achievements of urban and architectonic order, have had a great significance in shaping the urban landscape of 21st century Colombia. His commitment to improving the human condition has provided a global education on urbanization that has transcended his professional achievements. Today, thanks to his vision, diverse populations enjoy a rich urban environment and a high quality of life.

That first intention led to the reality of La Fragua, its evolution into projects and subsequent studies, and the institution of Housing Clusters as a local norm. A dynamic process on the part of important groups of urban planners generated a continuous revision and enrichment of the development projects of Germán Samper. A study conducted by the CID of the Universidad Nacional under the direction of Professor Lauchlin Currie in 1971, set the standards for the endowment of public and communal spaces and contributed to the Urban Development Study of Bogota-Phase II. It originated as the basis for said standards. Type A was designated for public space and Type B for communal space. Agreement 7 originated in 1979 by the Distrito Especial. This system has been adopted by most cities in the country.

Finally, regarding the size of the modern city and its many agglomerations (not foreseen half a century ago), Germán’s vision has allowed us to understand how the urban center has come to be characterized by its metropolitan areas. Additionally, the concept of Urban Enclosure is an essential aspect of the design of urban complexes and can be seen in several projects by many architects and urban planners throughout the national territory.

After the ratification of the rules of Agreement 7 of 1979 and in then Agreement 6 of 1990, regarding the required allocation of space for parks and communal spaces, its compulsory nature was established. Finally, Law 388 of 1997, in fulfilling its aim of promoting rational and equitable use of land, ordered compulsory public and urban mandates; their compliance was consigned by decree 619 of 2000 in the Land Use Plan of the Capital District.

Most of the territorial zoning plans of the country have ensured the creation of suitable habitats for the communal urban dwellings within our cities.

Scketch of the Master Plan for the Colsubsidio Citadel

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Real de Minas Citadel Esguerra, SĂĄenz and Samper General studies by ETA consortium, ConsultĂŠcnicos and Patricio Samper Bucaramanga, Colombia, 1977 Client: Urban Development Enterprise of Bucaramanga Scope of work: Planning. Advice on Housing and Urban Design. Architectonic Design, Central Square and Los Naranjos complex Urban plan for 60,000 inhabitants, 1,291.660 sq.ft.

In prosperous Bucaramanga, an urban and architectonic plan was directed towards 60,000 inhabitants; a city within a city. To meet this end the lands behind the old airport were adapted and reutilized. Two runways that ran perpendicularly were transformed into avenues and urban parks. They also proposed a large square, towards the centre of which would stand residential buildings that measured five stories high and had a system of interior-facing porches. A public square, octagonal in shape, where eight roads converge, presaged a new way of urban design, resuscitating values from architectonic traditions of the past.

Sketch for the Plaza Mayor pavement

Here, applied for the first time and holistically, are the theories of compact housings. The creation of urban dwellings takes precedence over the issue of population density. Instead of offering a self-absorbed and individualistic type of architecture that supercedes the public, the project sought the construction of discrete and harmonious buildings that shaped and defined open spaces and collective identity.

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To complement the square, a housing project on adjacent triangular terrain was built. For its design, a 7 x 7 meter grid was proposed, where three-stories houses were built on squared off lots with streets equal in width. The high-density complex achieved 110 housing units per hectare. What was accomplished was a highly pleasant urban environment that accommodated the city’s climate.

Due to administrative changes, the project in general was left unfinished. Only two sides of the triangle were built and the square’s surrounding areas suffered changes in regards to the initial proposal.

Nevertheless, the initial intention of the project, that sought to build a better urban landscape by means of housing, prevails.

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Germรกn Samper at the Plaza Mayor, 1977

Automobile and pedestrian network

Urban Design in the Colsubsidio Citadel The family subsidy fund Colsubsidio was a pioneer in the provision of economical housing for affiliates, when it inaugurated the Ciudadela as its first project bearing its name. A complex of housing units and supplementary services offered to its community, the citadel is located in a 150-hectare plot in the northwest section of Bogotรก.

Three entities participated in the management and design processes of the citadel. Foremost among them is Colsubsidio, an organization widely known for its track record providing services to the community, and which defined the housing program for middle and low income level member families.

Secondly, the National Planning Office, which prepared a roadways plan for the sector, zoning and green area regulations, and density and other regulations contained in decrees in force. And lastly, the firm Esguerra, Sรกez and Samper was in charge of obtaining the plot and providing urban design and a good portion of the architectural design.

High-density, low-rise housing principles were developed and implemented for this particular complex. In contrast to the isolated buildings that characterize modernism, a return to the notion of the city block was proposed by way of paramented architecture. This entails the coexistence of pedestrians and vehicles, urban spaces and the exaltation of public life, and represents a more human alternative to the construction of a city.

In Bogotรก the grouping of housing units in blocks is an entrenched, traditional model that permits life in a community and provides security. The project proposes five large blocks with houses distributed in a circle, as in rings that envelope cross-shaped structures of paramented architecture.

Municipal authorities proposed a 40m. wide central penetration roadway to the grounds, as well as connections with the roads of neighboring developments. The design respected road connections, but the main automotive artery was divided into two parallel roads that surround the central rotunda, thus facilitating the existence of a central pedestrian axis. In this way vehicular circulation flows easily on the paired road, while pedestrian circulation becomes a succession of spaces in human scale where dense construction areas alternate with public parks. The intent was to prioritize pedestrians over cars.

Preliminary sketch

A comprehensive project was designed, offering housing and community services -education, health care, recreation and commerce- to family groups of varying income levels. Good densities were attained with 2 and 3 stories individual housing units and 5 stories multi-family units. Public, communal and private property models were developed promoting a sense of belonging and responsibility for the immediate surroundings.

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Preliminary sketch

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Preliminary sketch

The complex contemplates a circular central plaza at the entrance, which gather the community and are required transit for all inhabitants. The space is consolidated with a kiosk for music presentations, informal stands and a gated sector in the middle of the plaza for stores that supply daily needs. A landmark building capable of providing multiple services to the community was proposed as a threshold or urban gate to this plaza.

Both the south and north rotundas or roundabouts include two pedestrian streets flanked by housing units crossing at right angles. Because the central rotunda is on a vehicular axis foreseen by the Planning Office for future commercial use, the road was proposed as easement or private property that could eventually become public. Currently this road is buried and has given way to the construction of a shopping mall on the surface.

Two passive recreation parks were designed between the three rotundas, and a large active recreation park in the ring road to the Juan Amarillo River, with sports fields and courts, athletics tracks and space for future indoor facilities. Community services were distributed on an axis perpendicular to the south central park. These buildings include the largest variety of treatments, since their development depends on different designers who sought to exercise plural and participatory architectures. In these proposals the church and entrance portal, currently under construction, were designed by G.X. Samper.

Lastly, semi-public spaces (such as communal meeting rooms, shared water tanks, gates and parking garages) are regarded as community spaces and mediate between the public and private spheres.

Colsubsidio Citadel: built blocks by Esguerra, Sรกenz and Samper, and GX Samper Arquitectos

Multi Family Housing in the Colsubsidio Citadel Esguerra, Sรกenz and Samper, and GX Samper Arquitectos Bogotรก, Colombia, 1986-2011 Client: Caja Colombiana de Subsidio Familiar (Colsubsidio) Housing Department: Samuel Vieco and Gabriel Herrera Scope of work: Urban and architectonic design Urban project for 12,000 houses Density: 150 houses/ha. Area: 140 ha.

The south circular block was the first stage to be built, in the sector adjacent to Calle 80, the only access road at the time. In this first stage multi-family housing units were combined facing public roads, which curve gradually to form the rotunda, with individual homes facing inwards. The goal was to create residential unit clusters resembling small villages with open architecture and open spaces, and varied compositions and appearances. A circular plaza was designed on Avenida 80 to supplement the housing units, evoking port plazas facing the sea or rivers.

The first 5-stories blocks included 10 apartments of varied typology with a staircase as the fixed point. The stairs and also the kitchen in each apartment assumed the curvature of the complex, while bedrooms and living rooms were done in similar fashion in all blocks to facilitate serial construction.

Exposed brick, color panels and varied designs on roof endpoints or gables were proposed to add variety to the units. In this way each unit or group included distinctive architectural elements that reinterpreted traditional European models. Each block was done in structural masonry with 12 cm and 15 cm thick reinforced brick walls, which were left exposed both inside and outside.

The following sectors built between 1990 and 2007 maintained the rotunda and peripheral block distribution but increased housing density, which reduced the price of homes. To do this it was necessary to eliminate single family homes, design buildings with 4 apartments per floor instead of 2, and reduce the parking index. With these measures it was possible to go from 180 v/h to 250 v/h over the net area.

Duplex typology was added in the last block, developed between 2007 and 2009. Gables were replaced by concrete vaults, and balconies were added to the apartments.

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Single Family Housing in the Colsubsidio Citadel Esguerra, Sรกenz and Samper Bogotรก, Colombia, 1986-1994 Client: Caja Colombiana de Subsidio Familiar (Colsubsidio) Housing Department: Samuel Vieco and Gabriel Herrera Scope of work: Urban and architectonic design Urban project for 12,000 houses Density: 150 houses /ha. Area: 140 ha.

Progressive development single family homes are destined for low income families. They were designed as an urban and architectural experiment conducted in 3 large blocks located on the north side of the complex, next to the 12 hectare park. Each block consists of grouped homes, blind alley streets for vehicles and continuous paths for pedestrians. Two meter wide passageways were created for circulation beneath the 2-stories homes. This created a true grid of pedestrian streets, in which children can move in total tranquility.

The distribution of the plot resembles a chessboard composed of buildings and small plazas that enrich urban spaces or dwellings.

Homes were delivered finished on the outside and unfinished inside, so owners could finish them according to their own budgets and needs. House floor plans are identical but faรงades are different, and this adds variety and richness to the cluster, as in the multi-family units. The exposed brick combined with colored panels identifies the different units.

Because they are progressive development homes, these groups were not regulated as condominiums. This made it possible for users to develop their own extensions and use modifications. Metal gates and fences appeared, walkways were closed off and the architectural complex deteriorated.

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Church Our Lady of Reconciliation GX Samper Arquitectos Ciudadela Colsubsiodio, Bogotรก, 2004 Structural engineer and builder: Francisco de Valdenebro

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Adapting to the needs of the inhabitant and providing a space for their aspirations: To endure, shelter, enable. These could be the virtues of a good home, even if implementing these virtues means the gradual disappearance of the original structure. How can an architect resist this? The acceptance of independence and vitality of architecture, that unfolds once construction finishes, could bear the answer.

Fernando García Huidobro, Diego Torres and Nicolás Tugas It is not possible to develop a town. It has to develop on its own. As it is possible for a stranger to build another man’s home, a stranger cannot give to that man the pride and confidence in himself as a human being…

Nyereve

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Ciudad Bolívar

Germán Samper Contributions to Housing Issues Mauricio Téllez

eferring to the work of Germán Samper is to refer to modern architecture and all that it represents. The Modern Movement is the source from which arise the concerns within this architect; It is not only an style, or an aesthetic approximation. Its historical, economic, and social importance resides in its search for unity between theory and practice and in a utopian vision of the future inscribed by the desire to change the environment of the time. Architecture is an instrument of social change. In this universe, as framework, Samper’s endeavors considered in this paper are those that are specifically oriented towards housing and its design, supported by the appreciation of its inhabitants.

Germán Samper and Le Corbusier’s Legacy From the beginning, the professional preoccupation of Samper’s has been marked by the social character learned from Le Corbusier. Founded on this character, during his journey he makes different syntheses: one referred to the alternatives of urban patterns, another that refers to the relationship between drawing and design, and one that is relative to modern and past architecture.

The first of them emerges when considering the need to find alternatives beyond those raised by his Maestro, the vertical green city, or the horizontal English or North American city. He understands and studies these two positions, but he does not opt for either, as he considers them inappropriate to confront the problems of our cities1. He then proposes what is called lowrise high-density housing to which are associated his doctrines, his “principles, and concepts such as density, housing groupings, the priority of the public space, alternate networks and urban enclosure.

That social character and sensibility is not only confined in his investigative and projective processes, but also it is illustrated in his approach supported in the many drawings and sketches drawn by hand on pencil over paper, operating as a record of each visit and journey through Europe, Asia, and our own continent. These travel notes, by way of journal, recorded not only on paper, but in the mind, constituting another of the syntheses of this 1 Le Corbusier opts for the unattached multi-family blocks “[…] he could not imagine a city made up of houses […]”. Samper on the contrary opts for this option. Nevertheless, they both look for the complement of the “individual and the collective” and draw inspiration in the Cartuja de Ema. Samper 2003, p 37-43.

pilgrimage, (which entails to live, possess, travel, touch, and shudder with the works and their history), and the tasks of design.

Paradoxically from these tools learned from Le Corbusier, Samper repeatedly discovers and recognizes the value of architecture and cities of the past, of the traditions and cultures criticized by the defenders of the modern city. Among both modern and historic cities, comes the third synthesis.

These processes of synthesis are complemented with an aspect that is perhaps the most suggestive and enriching of his production, social housing, in which all this theory takes shape on a specific practice. It is here where the “human aspect” dimension becomes evident. On one end, because the necessity and the ethic obligation to penetrate and understand the urban informality to which this type of housing belongs to, and on the other, it recognizes its inhabitants as the true connoisseurs of their needs and aspirations. This involves two aspects: redefining the role of the designer who is perceived as an orchestrator of ideas, and design as a means of interpreting the ideas and wishes of a wide diversity of inhabitants, not just those in low-income areas.

Behind these aspects is the muffled reality outlined by investigators towards the end of the late 60s of the previous century, and today repeated by authorities on the subject that pose the social production of habitat as a transforming option in our cities. Housing cannot be conceived as a product, but as a process, and as such, its design and building are part of the same process. It is the spatial practices of the inhabitants that us architects have not yet understood; we must study and understand them.

The Projective and Investigative Trajectory and its Results The professional occupation of creating a different and alternative model for our countries is centered in the necessity of increasing density, the intention of finding coexistence of inhabitants, and the need of counteracting the tendency of granting more areas for roads. The process begins with two projects of self-building, La Fragua in 19582 and Quirigua (SACC Society of Self-Building of Colombian Drivers, Sidauto), ten years later.

In both cases he created a group of housing units with an interior space, formed from two pedestrian paths and a series of small squares; the design was carried out under agreements with the future inhabitants. Housing units were single-family homes. They were built following the self-building system and by private initiative the processes were initiated and organized

by Germán’s wife, Yolanda, and different public and private entities took part in these processes as well. The project was planned out and built by low-income families. The architect had established a direct relationship with future inhabitants. In La Fragua the lot was 6m x 12m for a one-story house with gabled roof and with sufficient inclinations for an attic (living room/dining room area, kitchen, bathroom, three bedrooms) and a place for work. In Quirigua the lot was a squared off 10m x 10m for two-stories houses. On the first floor, a multiple space, bathroom, kitchen, and a patio that occupied 50% of the area. The interior distribution was the same, what varied was the occupation of the lot. Four types were offered, with the patio 2 The firm Esguerra, Sáenz y Samper is born this same year. The works of Samper, with respect to housing, were a personal preoccupation and it later became the interest of all partners when the Ciudadela Colsubsidio appeared in the decade of 1980.

of each type located to the side of the house, in front or behind. The second floor offered the possibility of expanding the house with three bedrooms.

The lesson learned from both projects was the fact that the gabled roof did not allow for extensions, this is why on the second project the structure and cover anticipated change.

These two experiences outline a position regarding the city. Both are a part of the first alternative experiences in Latin America to shape new ways of community life for residents. Samper is recognized as “theoretical precursor” of this search3, but unlike other exercises his approach opens up to the dynamics of the people, he is not part of the groups of residents, he participates in its design and in the physical configuration. With these projects he proposes a new way of life for numerous families, and the distance between the architectonic gesture and the political act decreases.

With the passing of time, in the case of La Fragua, different phenomena are seen. Additional spaces at the back of the units served as elementary school classrooms and these were the origin of a cooperative school established by the community. Other spaces have been rented out or used for several productive activities for both fathers and mothers. In other words, housing is much more than simply housing; it is used for many other purposes.

The majority of the units have been transformed and undergone processes of gradual growth. Commerce spaces have been added, other housing units such as apartments or more stories reaching 3 or 4 levels have surfaced. The diversity of family conformation and trades is complemented with different materials, levels, colours, and decorations. All these aspects influenced the proposal that Samper submitted in the contest for Quirigua. It was attempted to optimize management processes, organization and design, and many of the events listed were repeated in the practices of the inhabitants. The area of the patios was used differently: residential, commercial, garage, workplace, etc.

The search ended with an urban model called low-rise high-density housing, which was later complemented with housing groupings to help reduce the usage of rural land and the cost of living by implementing compact units. The idea of housing groupings is worked upon during the international PREVI contest4. The complex as a whole included three superblocks with vehicular circulation on the periphery, parking on one side, and the center for services linked by pedestrian walkways. A housing grouping was proposed with similar exterior areas used in previous projects; the units were flexible to facilitate further developments by their inhabitants. The lots were squared (with the same dimensions as in Quirigua), the houses varied in distribution and followed the same architectonic program and the same alternatives of occupation. The difference was smaller patios with access from all four sides.

When tracking the ways in which the project transformed over time, 35 years later, the results are positive on an urban and neighborhood level5.

The separation of the pedestrian and the automobile promotes the consolidation of communities. Shared spaces become fundamental socio-spatial unities.

Inhabitants organize themselves to maintain these spaces, which in turn raises the quality level of housing and the neighborhood. Pedestrian walkways connect these areas. Between vehicular access, parking lots and a park, an urban support takes place, which articulates variety and complements housing, thus enhancing 3 Browne, 1988, p. 149-157.

4 Lagueux, 1995, p. 144.

5 Lets remember that the Pilot 1 project had 26 proposals from13 teams which included between among others: Stirling from England, Alexander from the United States, Van Eyck from Holland, Correa from India.

its potential according to its location relative to them. Surrounding the vehicular roads and the pedestrian avenue, commerce areas are concentrated, and the schools are proximal to the park. Such support defines a neighborhood that is functionally integrated with the rest of the city. It is not a homogenous pattern that is interrupted when the property ends.

In terms of housing, as in the two aforementioned cases, in the process of transformation the family groups are diverse and many, their processes determine the growth of the dwelling. The ideas of the standard inhabitant ends, standard practice of public policies that stifle housing projects, multiplying neighborhoods throughout the city. Family history and the transformation of a dwelling are intricately linked and it is here where a key factor of the process is discovered: the pattern of family evolution. The requirements of each family vary with the years. The initial dwelling serves a support for a new image and new uses. The home is a two-way platform: for each family to build on itself and in relation to others, and it is also an artifact of income6. As Samper himself says: (…) there are few features from the original proposal (…) in Latin America the client is in charge7.

Solely in this last case, the growth around a patio ensures the environmental conditions of the housing unit. The patio is one of the most important permanent features; it plays a principal role in spatial terms, and also in regards to lighting, which guarantees good environmental conditions. The resident appreciates the role it plays8.

Some of these ideas are later present in various proposals from which are considered highly important, the Minimum Standards of Urbanization Study (1971), the Real de Minas Citadel in Bucaramanga (1978), and a subprogram of lots equipped with facilities (in Ciudad Bolivar) with the Caja de Vivienda Popular -a low income municipal sponsored housing enterprise- (1984). In regards to this one, Samper insists on the human aspect, and the indifference with which people is defined. He tries to value the logic of the informal sector in regards to growth, its strengths and weaknesses, and recognizes the incapacity of the district institutions of Bogotá and the state to solve the housing problem, the potential and hidden capital of people’s homes. He accepts unceremoniously that the logic of the development of informal sectors is the only possible option given the present circumstances.9

6 García Huidobro, and others, 2005, p. 72-76. Part of the thesis “Arquitectura, vida y transformaciones” for his exhibit at the IV Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitectura. The investigation covers all 26 proposals.

7 Ibid., p. 72-76 8 Samper, 2003, p.117 9 García Huidobro, and others, 2005, p. 72-76. p. 72-76

Ciudad Bolívar, Bogotá

Colsubsidio Citadel preliminary sketch

Utopia and the Colsubsidio Citadel With all of the above as context and antecedent, Samper faces the planning of the Ciudadela Colsubsidio. The Citadel is the synthesis, the arrival point of all this inquiry and the realization of the social character raised from the beginning. Here he developed an urban project in four sectors, the architectonic design of fourteen blocks in the first stage, four in the second stage, and three in the third stage10. The urban pattern developed and the concepts behind it are complemented with blocks of walled buildings and volume plans.

They both strengthen public space, dialogue between architecture and the city, and they allow the usage of the lot and the definition of the neighborhood’s identity.

With this set of concepts and design criteria, he interprets and answers both requirements of the Caja Colombiana de Subsidio Familiar, Colsubsidio, and the urban norms determined by, at the time, the Departamento de Planeacion Distrital (DAPD). With this project, Colsubsidio wanted to improve the quality of life and welfare of its members, create a new type of citizen and provide comprehensive services to meet their needs; meaning that this project was conceived as a fundamental human right11. This philanthropic search was very close to the one of the Utopians from the 19th century who desired social change12. The integrity, the self-sufficiency of the neighborhood, and the quality of the living quarters were conceived by Arias Pérez, Colsubsidio’s director, within the framework of the services provided by the Fund. For him, the relationship between this project and politics was clear. However, this attitude gradually changed into a housing solution stamped by the market. The first stage of the Citadel was under such positions, but they became blurred by 10 Samper, 2003, p, 212.

11 100% of the housing blocks of progressive development, 100% of the mixed housing of apartments and houses, 65% of blocks are multi-family or just apartments, and finally 25% for amenities. The process of construction and handing out process is quite long and it passes for different moments: direct recruitment (1983-1991), first competitions (1992-1994), competitions won (1995-2001), and incursion of construction (2002-2006). In this article we emphasize the first moment that precedes the changes of 1991 in the context and in Colsubsidio. Tellez, 2008.

12 In Samper words: “[…] the creation of a complex of the scale of a neighbourhood, which integrates not only the living quarters, but all other amenities for daily life that improve the quality of living of its future inhabitants such as: housing, day-care, schools, health centres, markets, and recreational areas […] To have an integrated neighbourhood, with homes and amenities, a humanized neighbourhood, giving priority to people over cars, a neighbourhood with identity”. Samper, 2003, p. 173

hiring schemes, contests, reduction of the living area of apartments, the demise of progressive housing development and single-family housing, density growth, and even more so by the profile of its members, the incursion of the builders and the almost total control by the Fund.

This way, the first drawings of the urban project answered to the conditions set by the district. A system of vehicular circulation from north to south starting from the principal avenue, calle 80, and a road for circulation with the surrounding neighborhoods from east to west. Said circuit is accompanied by a pedestrian walkway that connects all the urban elements and the three roundabouts, or circular blocks, formed by the housing groupings. The amenities are located at the south and east side of the second roundabout, at the meeting point of both vehicular roads. Initially, these facilities were equipped with a training center for micro-industry, workshops and homes for artisans, and on the north side (by the Juan Amarillo river), a sports facility.

The dwellings of interest are those of progressive development, which correspond to the 19, 20, and 21 blocks on the eastern side, and 27, 28, 29 and 30 blocks on the western side of the third roundabout. Each one of these blocks has a respective communal center13. Blocks were formed by housing groupings, which are interconnected by pedestrian walkways and supplemented by cul-de-sacs14. The units had an open garage on the first-story, as well as the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and a patio. On the second-story a bedroom, another bathroom, and a small common area. At first it was established that this type of house would occupy blocks 31 to 44, which were designed in sector 4 before including the other acquired areas.

This type of house was the cheapest, awarded through a lottery among members with lowest income, which at this time were the highest priority for 13 Howard, for example, “[…] proposed a garden-city built with enough low density to offer all its inhabitants the space, light, and air that were so needed downtown. Unlike a garden-suburb that depends on the ‘mother’ city, the garden-city would be autonomous, both physically and economically. It would also be economically self-sufficient, independent of private property […]”. Risebero, 1986, p.155.

14 These homes are part of the same stage as the 7 blocks over calle 80 where multi-family housing predominates, even when they are located in a different sector. Tellez. 2008.

the Fund and therefore were supported by an internal grant the same as the one offset by the construction of multi-family blocks on the calle 80. These homes are the only ones that collect escalation, interpreted here as a case or exterior finish, which allows the interior intervention of its inhabitants through the addition of a plate on which two bedrooms were projected. The imagined project in its first sketches even contemplated the idea of having commerce areas within the houses. For the residents of the entire citadel, but especially for the ones in these blocks it is difficult to assess the housing units separate from the neighborhood as they extend onto it, and vice versa. Inhabitants are most grateful to the Fund, and it is with them that the previous experiences are associated. In the Citadel, at the level of housing, Samper had no direct link with its future inhabitants; the only thing known about them is their social stratum, which is considered a limitation, for costs and materials. Here the Fund is the client and the one that mediates between the architect and the residents; it is the Fund what determined all decisions.

In accordance with the testimonies of the inhabitants, with their practices processes of appropriation and significance are materialized, daily dynamics in which the imagined project is built15. The neighborhood life constitutes an “anthropological place”16. Many social and spatial dimensions can be differentiated. There is a sequence between family or private life, the dwelling and the collective life, neighborhood life (which happens on the street), the block, the house grouping, and the urban or public life17. In the first two levels is the referred identity: around the home, which is the particular identity. In regards to the neighborhood, or grouping: the singular identity, and surrounding neighborhood: the shared identity. Each one of these levels implies socioeconomic heterogeneity, relationships and borders of differentiation, spatial 15 In this aspect Samper, raises a critique in regards to private property in a similar way to Le Corbusier, so as not to abolish it, but its redefinition as a condition for planning and directed primarily at controlling the land by the State.

Samper proposes a different approach of construction, new urban shapes and architectonic conventions where the “collective” is the priority. Holston, 1989.

16 Several theorists refer to these processes. Amongst them: Lefebvre 1991, Bourdieu 1998 and 1999, De Certeau and Mayol, 1998. Tellez. 2008.

17 Augé. 1998. In this process spaces become urbanized, the anonymity is broken and community is recovered. They form an “us” that is expressed in different levels of identity. In each level the public, the common, and private and is distinguished. Horizontal property in closed apartment complexes and individual property in progressive housing groupings. Tellez, 2008.

and symbolic, a particular us/other relationship. Living in a block of houses of progressive development or in apartments, also means to share some subjective appreciations about these living conditions. Residents make reviews and judgments that define a differentiated “us” from the other inhabitants of the same neighborhood, the same block. Such appreciations become evident in the guidance elements and references used. Neighborhood life is built little by little, from the moment of arrival, amongst emotions and enthusiasm inhabitants get to know each other and become integrated on different spatial levels18.

These identities have been essential to address the different problems they have had to face. From bringing an end to the interest of increasing the Citadel’s stratum, to offering alternatives regarding the conflict around the trade that has accompanied the development of the neighborhood. Also, they were a base for different strategies designed to maintain security, for the creation of communal action boards, to disallow the entry of mass transportation into the neighborhood, and the consolidation of the transport cooperatives. The neighborhood identity was specifically strengthened by the construction of two facilities: a daycare (which constitutes the first stage for a school), since it has been traditionally used as the place of interaction between families, and a church. The daycare was a result of a collective effort between Samper and the teachers who conducted the educational program19, and the church was built regardless of complex management processes or lot acquisition, the result being Nuestra Señora de La Resurrección20, which happened with the help of different neighborhood organizations, Father Luis Eduardo, and Colsubsidio. It was with him that the inhabitants gave the process its last push, and who facilitated the design process to Samper, its circular shape, and the functional and symbolic characteristics. With the latter, community was built; they achieved one of the communal projects in the neighborhood making everyone proud.

18 This is close to that raised by authors like Pérez 2004, p. 33, and Salazar, 2004, p. 107. Pérez differentiates the private life from the community and the public life. Salazar distinguishes the private life from the domestic and the social.

19 Interviews with professor Elvira Gutiérrez, 2006, and professor Espinel, 2006.

20 Interviews with Father Luis Eduardo, 2006 and 2007.

Sketch of Colsubsidio Citadel access

…While the trees grow…

In his most recent publications, Samper makes two comparisons that we consider key references for this discussion. Both refer to housing as a process, which unfolds over time and is specified and illustrated in the progressive development of affordable housing.

The first serves as a counterpoint from his experience. He briefly narrates, almost nostalgically, how his family’s history is inseparable from the transformations of his home, and how in it, their dreams, possibilities, necessities, and lives are represented. The house, designed at the top of a hill, had three transformations: the first one is associated with the arrival of his third daughter; an extension was built alongside the main structure for his two sons, involving changes to the stairs which in turn had an impact on the living room and its relation with the dining room. An attic for his oldest daughter was also added to the house. With the gradual departure of his children, the house began to be too large for those left. Many options were considered, and the chosen one was to subdivide. This is transformation number two. Four apartments were created; three for rent and the main house remained as is. The third transformation consisted in interior transformations related with his professional retreat, and the work place is now located in the library, the computers in the old dining area, and the work space for his secretary in the service room.

Samper concludes (...) it has been completed, as in social housing, a house of progressive development and a productive house (...).

In the second comparison he contrasts the apartments with progressive development housing. He recognizes them as a modern way of urban development used in a generalized manner by complexes or individual lots. He considers it applicable only in the formal sector where credit must be granted in order to acquire it, in other words, sectors with the economic capacity to pay their credits in the market. It is merely merchandise, a finished product with purely residential use and whose producer has only lucrative intentions. However, he considers apartments inadequate for low-income sectors since they cannot be transformed, or grow, or be modified. Housing of progressive development is considered the most effective type of housing for low-income sectors since (...) people are fully able to solve their housing problems themselves (...)21 After nearly 50 years of research, and the authority that this implies, these comparisons are suggestive. Behind them is a conceptualization of housing as a process that leads him to progressive development, which is auto-produced, to be used without any interest in making it profitable (although it could be made so if desired). This characteristic is unique to lowincome sectors in whose cases different resources other than economic ones arise. It is a double recognition of, on one hand, the contributions of this type of housing, which are not visible to the market or the academy despite being the most commonly used throughout our cities. And on the other hand are the inhabitants, their efforts and achievements outside the intervention of the State22. This implies a criticism of the readings and interpretations of the housing that is conceived as a product, as a finished object, which negates any possibility of growth or intervention from its inhabitants according to 21 22

Samper 2003, p. 238.

Samper 2008. He never considered the possibility of living in an apartment.

their changing necessities. This notion leads to minimal housing that is developed by stakeholders interested in generating profits, which implies credit and long recovery periods23.

It cannot be denied that the architectural design of homes refers to forms, urban and architectural, and to the aspects of construction. Samper has begun to conceive housing as something more than an object, the architect has begun to learn – open-ended task – to comprehend and value different lessons of the social productivity of habitat. This comes closer to social change, but via an assessment of the needs, dreams, and desires of the inhabitants. It is also tries to bring theory and practice closer together, and aspires to seek a way out of the contradiction between utopias of spatial form that is definitive, and the utopianism of the social process that leaves an open end. It is a work in process24.

23 In this point he coincides with the ideas of authorities on the subject such as Enrique Ortiz Flórez,Gustavo Romero, Rosendo Mesías, or Fernando Castillo Velasco. The latter, presents one of these works, recognizes Samper and “his capacity for feeling and understanding” low-income housing.

24 This later interpretation is based on the theory of housing shortage not only as a product, but also as a scarce commodity. In economy, at a theoretical level, there is a debate between those who conceive it as lucrative, chrematistic, and those who instead see it as the art of managing the production and distribution of goods needed to supply the community and human needs, oikonomia. Hinkelamert, 2009, p. 29. It is clear that the whole development of Samper is inspired, or at least closer to the latter.

Bibliography Auge, Marc. Los No Lugares. Espacios del anonimato. Una antropología de la sobremodernidad, 4a edición., Barcelona, Gedisa editorial. 1998.

Bourdieu, Pierre, La miseria del mundo. Madrid, Ediciones grupo Santillana, 1998.

Bourdieu, Pierre, Razones Prácticas. Sobre la teoría de la práctica. Barcelona, Anagrama, 1999.

Brown, Enrique, Otra arquitectura en América Latina, México, Gustavo Gili, 1988.

De Certeau, Michel, La invención de lo cotidiano, Universidad Iberoamericana, Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Occidente, Centro Francés de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos. 1.

Artes de Hacer, 1999.

De Certeau, Michel; Girard, Luce, Mayol, Pierre, 2 Habitar, cocinar, 1999.

García Huidobro, Fernando; Torres, Diego & Tugas, Nicolás “Previ Lima: 35 años después”. Arq, marzo, número 059, Santiago, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, PP. 72-76, 2005.

Harvey, David, Espacios de esperanza, Ediciones Akal, Madrid, España, 2000.

Hinkelammert, Franz J., Mora Jimenez Henry. Hacia una economía para la vida. Preludio a una reconstrucción de la economía. Bogotá, Proyecto Justicia y Vida. Compromiso. Casa de la Amistad Colombo-Venezolana, 2009.

Holston, James. The modernist city. An Anthropological critique of Brasilia. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Lagueux, Maurice, “La cabeza del arquitecto”, in Ideas y valores. Revista Colombiana de Filosofía, Bogotá, Nos. 96-97 Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Abril de 1995.

Lefebvre, Henri, The production of space, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, Blackwell publishers, 1991.

Ortiz Flores, Enrique, “Conceptualización de la vivienda”. in Revista Malacate, año 1 Nº. 1, Julio Agosto de 2004.

Ortiz Flores, Enrique. La producción social del hábitat: ¿opción marginal o estrategia transformadora?, www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/noticias_textos.php Risebero, Bill, La arquitectura y el diseño modernos. Una historia alternativa, Madrid, Hermann Blume Ediciones, 1986.

Romero, Gustavo y Mesías, Rosendo. (Coords.), La participación en el diseño urbano y arquitectónico social del hábitat, México, Habyted- Cyted, 2004.

Saldarriaga, Alberto, “Aprender arquitectura”. Manual de supervivencia, Corona, 1996.

Samper, Germán. Experiencias y reflexiones en la proyectación de vivienda de interés social, Bogotá, Universidad La Gran Colombia, 2008.

Samper, Germán La evolución de la vivienda. Bogotá, Fondo Editorial Escala, Colección Somossur, 2003.

Samper, Germán, Recinto Urbano. La humanización de la ciudad. Bogotá, Fondo Editorial Escala, 1997.

Samper, Germán. La arquitectura y la ciudad. Apuntes de viaje. Bogotá, Fondo Editorial Escala, 1986.

Téllez, Mauricio, “Arquitectura y vida barrial en la Ciudadela Colsubsidio: El proyecto imaginado y el proyecto habitado”. Thesis. Master in Anthropology. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, 2008.

Interview with Germán Samper Marcela Ángel Ximena Samper

T

he research group PAC, Project Architecture and City, from the Universidad de los Andes is preparing an exhibit on architect Germán Samper Gnecco’s research on housing. During early 2010 some of his housing projects were analyzed as an academic activity and as part of the research of the faculty’s housing unit. Students presented their work to Samper Gnecco with lectures of which all professors from the housing unit attended. These lectures culminated in exciting discussions on subjects related to design, housing production, and the formation of residential areas in Bogotá.

During the second semester of 2010, the housing unit was under the direction of Jaime Gómez (theory), Clemencia Escallón (analysis), and Marcela Ángel, along with Ximena Samper (workshops).

Marcela Ángel (M.A.) It seems clear that there is a relation with your professional life and what you experienced at the workshop of Le Corbusier.

An example of this is the manner in which your research on housing has led you to the creation of new urban models. Could you explain how the housing proposals that you developed with Le Corbusier in the Pilot Plan for Bogotá influenced your own investigations on housing?

Germán Samper (G.S.) It’s necessary to emphasize that Le Corbusier proposed two types of housing for Bogotá. For the downtown core he planned collective housing and high-density buildings standing on columns and located in green zones; a type of housing impossible to adapt to the city at that time. For the residential areas he proposed housing clusters of compact houses, two or three stories high; this type was not understood back then and was quickly forgotten. What is interesting is that his idea was 50 years ahead of his time, now we achieve high-density with projects low in height.

M.A. Could we add that the Unité d’Habitation was, for you, the beginning of a reflection on the subject of density and collective spaces?

G.S. Yes, indeed. In regard to collective spaces, Le Corbusier always referred to Cartuja de Emma in Italy, where he found small houses used by monks with collective spaces such as the chapel, dining room, and meeting halls. It is possible that the common areas in housing clusters were an unconscious influence from this idea.

Ximena Samper (X.S) For you, what characterizes housing clusters?

G.S. When designing housing clusters, communal services such as community halls, garages, and security must also be included in the design.

It is a new form of habitat, a new urban pattern where an intermediate class of property appears, communal, neither public nor private.

Sidauto neighborhood, Bogotá

X.S. The urban design term density has played an important role in your projects. La Fragua is the first project in which this topic is developed.

Could you tell us more on the subject?

G.S. In La Fragua we joined two blocks that were given to us and we tripled the density. Density refers to the degree of urban land use. From La Fragua I learned three things: firstly, when working together with lowerincome citizens, architects can find a better pattern of habitat for them and improve their quality of life; secondly, the importance of developing research on issues of low-level density; and thirdly, the possibility of generating residential areas through the use of pedestrian roads and squares.

X.S. In your projects there is a clear differentiation between the pedestrian and the automobile, as in the public and the private. This differentiation results in a unique urban quality achieved with a diversity of spaces and contrasts. Could you tell us more about this?

G.S. La Fragua and Sidauto alerted me to the necessity of increasing the number of housing units and making them more compact to increase density, which in turn reduced the land cost by half. Similarly, narrow pedestrian roads taught me the importance of spaces without automobiles.

This was the beginning of my research on the subject of density.

Through theoretical exercises, that is to say, schemes without a definite place in the city, I studied various shapes and sizes of lots in blocks, reducing vehicular routes and quantifying the results in terms of density.

I understood that the patterns that were paradigms during that time, such as collective buildings of high density, or individual housing surrounded by gardens (as in North American and English cities), were not suitable for us, the first because of its height and cost, and the second because of its low density.

Sidauto neighborhood, BogotĂĄ

I discovered that the new urban pattern that we called low-height, high-density housing was starting to emerge. David Serna became acquainted with the work and offered to dedicate a complete edition, number 17 to be exact, of the magazine Escala to showcase it. This was the turning point of my research.

M.A. There are three key facts in La Fragua and Sidauto. The first one is that the neighborhoods were built by the system of directed selfbuilding, which showcased efficiency; the second, that their development was gradual, due to the transformation of houses over the years; and thirdly, the design planned for a productive home from the start. In the case of La Fragua the localized enclosure at the end of the lot was fundamental in this process.

G.S. La Fragua and Sidauto proved to be an important testing ground.

In regard to La Fragua, CINVA1, with Chilean RenĂŠ Eyheralde as president, encouraged and enabled us. The ICT2 offered us the land and the funds for purchasing materials, and Colsubsidio3 also helped with financing. We have closely followed this neighborhood over the years and have seen the spirit of progress in the families that inhabit it, and the essential role of housing in family development. The initial generation of La Fragua only had elementary 1 Centro Interamericano de Vivienda y Planeamieto Urbano (Inter-American Center for Housing and Urban Planning). An entity created in 1959 through an agreement between the OAS and the Colombian government. Universidad Nacional and Instituto de Credito Territorial (ICT) (Territorial Credit Institute), acted as government representatives. Its major task was the research on housing issues. It operated from the National University in Bogota until 1977.

2 2. The Territorial Credit Institute was an entity of the Colombian State created in 1939. It formulated, developed, and financed a great number of social housing projects in the country until its end in 1991.

Colsubsidio is a not for profit private organization. It belongs to the social protection and social security sec3 tor, and works for the well being of low-income people. It has a range of service units, as housing, nutrition, education, micro credits, recreation and health.

education, the current generation on average holds a high school diploma and there is a high percentage of university students; we saw a similar trend in Sidauto. Interestingly, all the steps in this research are connected; the La Fragua project helped me with my candidacy for the Bogotá Council, where I worked with mayor Virgilio Barco and with Jorge Rivera Farfán, Head of Planning, to push through an agreement for housing clusters, Agreement 82/67.

Shortly after, a group of professionals discovered the possibilities and urban potential of this new pattern and became developers, architects and builders of such clusters.

M.A. The concept of housing clusters had international recognition during an exhibit in Paris. It was said that this new pattern had the best individual space and the best collective space. At the same time, in Bogotá, it started a controversy over closed complexes. What is your opinion on this subject?

G.S. Yes, a French researcher who visited Bogotá wrote a book on Colombian architecture4 and organized an exhibit in Paris. She expressed in the title of a newspaper article: The individual and the collective, resolved opposition.

This pattern groups a complex of individual houses that share community services, a community of neighbors governed by the regime of horizontal property; the same idea as vertical apartments. Over time, some developers built very large projects, which interrupted the flow of the city, which is obviously a serious mistake. So I maintain that this is a problem of scale, a small scale will not interfere with the road grid and, in turn, will create a stronger sense of community and respect for the surroundings. This creates, as we said, a new type of property that is different from private or public: communal property.

X.S. As a comment, I would like to add that those complexes were built for high-income families and there were some architects that developed very interesting closed complex projects. When it comes to low-income housing the firm Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper created open and permeable groupings as in the Colsubsidio and Real de Minas Citadels.

G.S. In high-income groupings, houses are completely finished and under strict horizontal property regulations, in order to protect the complex from possible changes that could affect it. Social housing is usually unfinished and regulations are sometimes hard to implement, the result is, unfortunately, chaos within the complex. La Fragua, for example, is not a grouping and has fluidity of roads, and at the same time inhabitants have the liberty of transforming their homes.

M.A. In your travels you have confirmed the existence of similar housing clusters which you have sketched. How have they influenced your research?

4 Anne Berty, a French researcher responsible for the exhibit Architectures Colombiennes, which opened in the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1981, and the book that accompanied the exhibit.

G.S. In Mexico and Peru I found similar housing clusters, and also in Europe, especially in France and Spain. These were recorded in sketches, findings that have become the confirmation of the thesis. These examples were recorded in a volume of Escala Magazine called Medieval Space.

M.A. In PREVI5 you apply the principles you had developed up until that moment, but you also mention the discovery of public space. Tell us a bit more.

G.S. In PREVI, Peru, the concept of high-density in low-height was applied when participating in an international competition sponsored by the United Nations. The competition had been requested by the President of Peru at the time, architect Fernando Belaúnde Terry and with the direction of English architect Peter Land. There we learned the advantages of a square plot of 9m x 9m, which allowed assembly in any direction. We discovered that what we were looking for were public spaces; density enriches public space. From this moment on I started to develop interest on the subject.

X.S. Lets move to the subject of city, specifically the subject of urban structure and your concern about the scale of the automobile and the pedestrian.

What did the project’s minimal norms6 consist of, and how does it relate to the theory of alternate networks?

G.S. Minimal norms was a commission that an interdisciplinary group, directed by Aníbal López Trujillo, realized along with the ICT and the Bogotá Mayor’s office. When applying my thesis it was proven that an increase in density would dramatically reduce the infrastructure and land costs. We designed a model in which we tried to create a double network, pedestrian and vehicular. We called them alternate networks, and discovered that this principle was an urban solution with universal application. Thirty years later, this concept was applied in Metrovivienda, in the Recreo complex.7 M.A. In your opinion, the La Alhambra urbanization8 was a lost opportunity. What happened?

G.S. The developer was in charge of the complex. I explained my grouping theory to them and they accepted it. Designs were done and permits were obtained. However, they were afraid of such a new concept and ordered me to design three different ones. Later on when lots began to sell, groupings in other areas of the city were successful and so they decided to close roads and build clusters in inadequate conditions. What did work, however, were the multi-family buildings on 116th Street, in the method of ground planes. We proposed, for example, a 20-stories high building that was built many years later.

5 Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda (PREVI) (Experimental Housing Project). An international competition that took place in Lima (Peru) in 1969. Originally planned as a project for low-cost housing for 1,500 families, was later developed for 500 homes. 26 proposals were received, two of which are from the firm Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper.

6 Study of Minimum Standards in Urbanization, Public and Community Services (ICT, DAPD, and DNP, 1972) 7 Ciudadela El Recreo, Metrovivienda. City Hall of Bogotá. Urban design realized by architects Konrad Bruner, Gustavo Perry, and Eduardo Samper (1999).

8 A residential area located in the north of Bogotá.

M.A. That’s interesting.

M.A. In regard to ground planes, you emphasize the need for more precision on the typology in order to get the most out of it.

G.S. Yes, my model for that project was Rivoli Street in Paris. However, those buildings followed the pattern of a façade defined in detail. In our time we are accustomed to more freedom.

M.A. All these concepts were applied in Real de Minas Citadel. The project, located on an elevated plateau that is in very close proximity to the existing city, forms an urban relation through the roads that connect to it. The facilities and urban spaces complete the project. Is this what you refer to when you talk about sewing the city?

G.S. There is much to talk about regarding this subject. Through the idea of ground planes, an octagonal square was proposed, it would sit on the intersection of the two runways of the old airport. The developers liked the idea and commissioned me with the design. This way of conceiving the city was against the principles of Le Corbusier, my mentor. Around that time, Josep Lluís Sert, president of CIAM, visited Medellín to attend a meeting that commemorated its Regulatory Plan. I was invited to show the plans for the citadel. I feared Sert’s critique, but I was pleasantly surprised when he said to me: Yes, Germán, now we have to sew the city.

M.A. You have mentioned twice that you moved away from Le Corbusier’s theories. In Europe similar theories in regard to public space have been raised, especially those developed by the Kriers. Is this coincidence or did you study their theories?

G.S. The Kriers were two brothers who fought to impose different theories for the creation of public space. A generation tends to go to the polar opposite to find their identity. In my case, when designing buildings, I feel the influence of my admired mentor. When it comes to homes I have moved away in some aspects and followed his theories in others.

M.A. Could you explain this further?

G.S. Le Corbusier presented two different types of living typologies: large apartment blocks, and housing complexes called one house, one tree, houses Sert style, and others that in Paris we drew specifically for Bogotá. I have rejected the blocks due to their utopian nature, but I have followed his ideas in regard to affordable housing.

M.A. You move away from your mentor, but you agree that architecture and urban space impact the quality of life.

X.S. It is the same principle.

G.S. The same search.

G.S. But with a different architecture.

M.A. With a different scale.

G.S. However, with the idea that change can be achieved through architecture.

M.A. This is curious, because architecture is in the background.

G.S. Yes. X.S. It becomes anonymous.

G.S. Exactly so.

X.S. How do your previous investigations come to play in larger and more complex housing projects? Arguably, the most important feature of the Colsubsidio Citadel is the application of alternate networks, in terms of planning concerns; but also to be on a larger scale, it needed to be a comprehensive project, i.e. complete community service. This is also the case with the Ciudadela El Recreo and Ciudad Meléndez projects.

G.S. They are a bit different. Colsubsidio had to abide by a law that required using a certain percentage of its income towards social housing (VIS)9. A large plot of land was purchased so that they could continue to abide by the law over several years. A complete urban project was designed; it was to be developed in stages. The premise was to be a humanized project that gave priority to people over the automobile; an integral project with complete communal services and with architecture that encouraged public space. Colsubsidio has continued to follow these guidelines over a quarter of a century. At the beginning, single-family housing and multi-family housing was built, after the cost of land increased only multi-family housing was built.

The case of Metrovivienda is different. Law 388 of 1997 for territorial management determines that city halls must assign territory for social housing, build the infrastructure and sell it to housing developers; it exercises a control over these activities. Metrovivienda is the name given to a land bank that has the legal tools to select, buy, and if necessary, expropriate land. In the case of the complex El Recreo, I suggested the preliminary outlines for a competition. I guided three professionals10 that developed the winning design.

In the design we applied the principles of a comprehensive theoretical framework of minimum standards.

9 10

Minimum Housing Unit promoted by the State.

Urban design by Konrad Brunner, Gustavo Perry, and Eduardo Samper, with the advice of Germán Samper.

Colseguros neighborhood, Bogotá

Ciudad Bolívar, Bogotá

In regard to the Meléndez Complex in Cali, an urban project was developed with the middle-class in mind. It was demanded that automobiles be able to go all the way up to the houses’ driveways. We managed to prove how the new principles could be adapted to any situation. My daughter Ximena created the final design. However, the crisis of the country at the time frustrated the realization of this project.

M.A. It could be said that another of your ideas had transcended and was being used by others; as had already happened with the housing cluster.

For example, in the project for Ciudad Salitre, is there a relation between the proposed urban structure and your theory of alternate networks?

G.S. Yes indeed, they name them differently, just simply designed.

Many experts can come up with these shapes, because they are urban. A unique house is a design that adapts well to a specific place, while a typology or an urban pattern can transcend. Le Corbusier was a master in creating theories that, whether we like them or not, are still current.

X.S. Lets talk about Ciudad Guasare, in Venezuela, which took place before Colsubsidio Citadel and after Real de Minas Citadel.

G.S. Venezuelans wanted to extract coal on the border with Colombia, in the Guajira region, and had planned to build a new city. I found this extremely interesting. They has a good team of urban planners and architects, but also decided to hire advisors such as Christopher Alexander, Kevin Lynch, Marcial Echenique, and our firm. We worked with architect Tomas Neu. We visited the area several times to meet with the team and have a preliminary discussion while the appropriate terrain for the construction of the city was found. In our case, we conducted a few preliminary exercises based on the regular grid. The initial concern was how to create a nucleus that was compact, while allowing areas of expansion towards the center. We also designed the initial block and parking lot distribution. The economic crisis in Venezuela put an end to this initiative.

X.S. The idea of achieving high-density in low-height spaces emerged several years ago and since then the pattern has been improved. This is also the case with the idea of creating public spaces. However, the situation today has changed and plot size has become smaller and smaller, taller buildings are starting to appear as a solution for affordable housing. What are your thoughts on this?

G.S. In regard to single-family housing, areas are being abused. Lots of 18 to 25 square meters are not ideal. Municipal authorities should set a minimum area standard and lower the cost of land. These initiatives would be very beneficial.

In regards to buildings of 10 to 12-stories for affordable housing, many risks are being taken. The first one is that inhabitants might not be

able to pay their rent. In the construction crisis of the late 90s, we had many examples. The second risk is the level of education of tenants, which can lead to problems coexisting with neighbors, thus transforming these buildings into inhospitable and unsafe spaces. Caracas and Mexico have had this grave situation happen, as well as some cities in Europe and the United States. Another unpleasant aspect is that of exposed parking lots. The costs of subterranean parking lots cannot be afforded in lower-income buildings and fences are used to protect them, they become a detriment to the city. I have watched scientific programs that show demolition experts demolishing buildings just like the ones being built in Bogotá.

M.A. When reviewing the topics of your research, such as your concern for a compact city, the elements of urban structure and their relationship to architecture, the creation of public space, and the need to accommodate the most disadvantaged, I ask myself: what are the new issues that should be studied today and which of the previous ones should we continue to study?

X.S. And, what are the warning signals?

G.S. I present a few points: 1. In academia: emphasize urban design as a discipline. Architects should think more of the city and not in isolated architectural pieces. Also to work on the subject of ground planes as prefiguration of public space.

2. The study of architectural and urban planning standards to protect citizens against property speculation, seeking measures to lower the cost of land.

3. Application of Law 388 of 1997 on large-scale projects.

4. Research the idea of renovating by blocks. Both the 100 x 100 colonial block and the 50 x 100 modern block. This type of renovation does not affect the public and provides a good level of development and design.

Maximum height for residential buildings: five to six floors.

5. Continue to work on the subject of self-build progressive development homes for viviendas de interés prioritario (priority housing units).

6. Betterment of neighborhoods, measures that should be taken by municipal authorities.

Warning: lots that are too small and buildings that are too high designated for social housing.

After understanding the process and steps that have shaped this housing research, which spans more than half a century, findings and contradictions have revealed new paths, patterns, and typologies to face the subject of housing. A methodological pursuit for answers to changing circumstances has resulted in concrete projects. We can conclude the need for intervention

where aspects such as dwellings (architectural, urban, private, and public) have to be intimately linked to social and human aspects (family composition and economic capabilities). It plays the lead role under the premise of the humanization of the city and the search of quality of life.

Ultimately, this is an issue that is still in process and must continue to evolve. We have to stay alert. It is an urgent call to understand the reality of inhabitants (progressiveness and productivity), issues of excess density and heights, etc.

To conclude, it is clear that Germán Samper Gnecco’s areas of research are in place for many important reasons; we will highlight three: Germán Samper is a great example of an architect who cares for the society in which he exercises his profession. He has not only participated with his firm in designing great architectural projects for the country, but also developed his research in housing at the same time, constant and effective, always responding to the circumstances of the time. He has helped to shape practices that have become fundamental and necessary, such as self-building and productive housing. His task was to execute and demonstrate that they were worthy and possible solutions which, one might add, remain valid alternatives to informal housing.

His interest in urban structure, present since the beginning of his research, has left an imprint on our cities. Nevertheless, his ideas have also been questioned, many times due to politics or to the context for which his projects were planned. His contribution to the Study of Minimum Standards is still a key reference, as is the quality of the urban structure of his design for neighborhoods in Ciudad Bolívar and the urban equipment, which has become the structural axis of major urban areas, both in physical and social aspects. Germán Samper’s research was ahead of his time. The theory of alternate networks, applied in the Metrovivienda’s project called Ciudadela El Recreo, is a demonstration of the validity of this research and its impact on the quality of urban space.

Ciudad Meléndez, Cali, Colombia

In this sense, Germán Samper’s research enables progress on issues related to urban structure. It is architecture conceived more like shaping of urban space as an expression of individuality and the pursuit of quality urban public space.

Ultimately, after studying the documents of Germán Samper’s research on the subject of housing and city, which are now part of the donation he made of his personal archive to the Archivo de Bogotá, we can ensure that a very important space for investigation on the subject is available, which can enrich academic discussion and practice.

Ciudad Guasare, Venezuela

Santa Ana House Bogotá, Colombia, 1955 Client: Architect’s house Scope of work: Architectonic design and construction Upon his return to Colombia, Germán Samper’s architectural practice began with the design of residences. In these early works the architect explored determined elements, such as white walls with interrupted contouring, visible bindings of fused elements over concrete, wooden window frames, and inclined roofs that function to better complement the Capital’s rainy weather. The architect’s own home stands out in the search for simple architectural language that, without pretension, achieves sculptural expression.

The home of the architect and his family is situated northeast of the capital in a pleasant residential neighborhood. The initial stage of construction stands on the highest point of an inclined plot of land. A second story overhangs the first and is projected outwards over the landscape. A gable roof covers this elongated elevated section, running longitudinally across the rectangular shape. An enveloping white wall is interrupted at several points of its perimeter, where deep windows of varying shapes and sizes are housed.

A winding road that begins on the lower section of the terrain allows for an unhurried approach towards the house. This path allows one to perceive the house’s volume and to notice, from being at an angle, the sculptural contours. There is noticeable care given to the manner in which different planes meet, and to where transitions from full to empty take place. At the meeting of these points, exposed concrete substitutes for the white of the walls and is projected in order to frame the windows, which in turn, frame the landscape from the interior.

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As the family grew, so too did the house. Expansions were added to the house, one of which was an extension to one side of the house for several more bedrooms, and the other a covered garage down at the bottom of the slope. The architect saw an opportunity to construct three additional spaces to rent out when the Central Mortgage Bank created a section that gives loans to homeowners seeking to create subdivisions where the number of people living on a plot of land will increase. The office was moved to the second floor of the expansion.

This work in particular exemplifies the three premises that Samper defends and explores in terms of his residential projects: self-building, progressive development, and productive housing. The building of a home for Samper is vital; it is a gradual and evolutionary process and his own home is no exception to this principle.

The architect’s home has served to experiment with the notions of community that characterize all of his work. The evolution of the house transmits a progressive distancing from the initial modern rationalism that was envisioned in its early stages. A large luscious garden has grown to such an extent that the sharp geometric lines of the main house have all been muted; creating a group of houses where the main house no longer stands out; it is all concealed amongst the gorgeous earth tones of a miniature forest. Within this forest lives a family unit that is perfectly distanced from the buzzing of the city, even though it is surrounded by it. Hiding the complex from street level is a wall constructed of various materials of different sizes; unbeknownst to visitors who have never visited, a main house and its offspring lie enshrouded in a lush mini-forest.

The house adapts to the family’s necessities and so becomes a complex that stimulates coexistence.

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First stage, lower floor

First stage, upper floor

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Second stage, section by the main alcove

Second stage, section by the stairs

Second stage, transversal section Second stage, upper floor

Third stage, street level

Third stage, garden level

Third stage, upper level

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Third stage, loft level

San Pedro de El Abra Subachoque (Cundinamarca), Colombia, 1980 Architect’s country home Scope of work: Architectonic design and construction

San Pedro de El Abra is a refuge for the family that is situated in a mountainous setting outside of BogotĂĄ. With the intention to have a place of rest outside of the city; excavation began high on a hill where the vistas are exceptional. At that time, the dream house had too high of a budget to be built right away, and in the desire of not wanting to postpone any longer, a temporary house was built. The first independent construct of 3.6 x 3.6 m became a permanent structure due to its practicality and quality of build.

As a result, future expansions were to be developed by attaching similar modules like the original. What came to be were four similar squared buildings, each with a hipped roof. The first module became the main quarters and is further forward in regards to two lateral ones that are attached by its corners. All three modules share a posterior corridor, which provides access and distribution to the different rooms within the complex.

A niche that protrudes and houses the main bed makes the central module stand out. The second module hosts a studio, the third one contains necessary amenities, and a fourth distanced from the rest, serves as a guesthouse. Prefabrication was done in wood and assembled on site, then received tiled roofing and was lifted from the ground by means of rubblework structures. The house, of precise dimensions and finishes, demonstrates that even something provisional, if made with great care, can become permanent.

San Pedro del Abra stands as a testament to what making a home requires, creativity, attention to detail in its construction, economy of means, and above all a respectful and moderate attitude towards the environment that surrounds it.

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This small wooden house is an exercise in minimum spaces in the midst of nature. The three wooden modules sit on a brick terrace and their spaces, as in ship design, permit only the necessary furniture. The house is designed for daily use by the couple during holidays, with outside spaces used to receive guests.

Near and far vistas can be appreciated from inside.

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GERMÁN SAMPER Sara Topelson

Germán Samper is an architect with an immense social sensibility, universality in culture, and a highly creative talent with whom I have had the fortune of sharing many memorable moments on many occasions. He is a dear and admired friend. Germán is an example to those of us who exercise this vital profession, one who is deeply humanistic and integrates the arts, the sciences, and technology; truly a way of life. His thought process and realizations have always held great significance and relevance in the Latin American realm.

In the presentation of his book, The Evolution of Housing, an account of research and professional practice that spans 45 years, Samper states his interest in social housing as a vital subject for Latin American countries and developing countries in general, in which income differences augment impoverishment in high percentages. Home, the domicile, the place we always want to return to, the place where affection is sheltered by walls and ceilings, has always been a constant in his personal and professional life. We could say that our homes are to the human, what our body is to our soul. In Germán’s case, self-building and various experiences in the realm of social housing and urban development definitively refined the course of his professional pursuit and was the inspiration for his creation of The Colombian Model, which has served as an example, not only in Colombia, but in the entire region.

The developement of the ideal city came close to the utopian realization that Tomas Moro envisioned 500 years ago; a settlement where the quality of life of its inhabitants was already a consummated act.

The proposition of concepts that attend to the dehumanistizing nature of cities today are a recurring concern of Germán’s. The revision of employed typologies in Colombian cities and the critical analysis of the reality of his country have led him to create “a new doctrine in the creation of city,” in which the citizens and sustainability are its core.

In another of his many books, Urban Enclosure, the Humanization of the City, Germán Samper assumes this challenge: in regards to urban development, we architects must become advocates for civilians and urban landscapes, just as road engineers must become advocates of the vehicle. We agree with Germán’s recognition of this. The public space of a city is charged with purpose and meaning. These are concepts that we have assumed in Mexico ever since President Calderón launched the program Recovery of Public Spaces, which restores the integrity of these spaces of social interaction and sport, and supports leaders in social networking, urban and community life.

The prevention of segregation is promoted by the existence of parks, squares, and recreational and sport-oriented areas. In three years (2007-2009) 2,700 public spaces have been recovered in Mexico with the intent of humanizing the city and restoring the communal scale. The purpose was to restructure the urban spread so that its design reflects the necessities of its inhabitants as opposed to that of its automobiles.

Large-scale housing and commercial complexes must be respectful of the natural surroundings, which in turn are articulated by public space, a factor in social integration, beauty, enjoyment, and safety. The objective of restructuring urban development and allocation of territory is, as understood by Samper, that people living in our time can have the quality of life that our predecessors of the utopia dreamt about.

Social housing is the wealth of the poor, the element with which they can achieve the dream of living in safety and with dignity apart from the patrimony that facilitates familial cohesion. When we take note that half of Bogotá is built spontaneously and without form, as is the case in many Latin American countries, Mexico included, we realize Samper’s commitment in his contribution to transform this condition.

The challenge is urban integration with the avoidance of social segregation.

Wise are the teachings of Germán Samper who worked under Le Corbusier in Paris in his youth, also collaborating on the Pilot Plan of Bogotá and on the urban map of Chandigarh (India), to name a few.

Let us emphasize and highlight one of his most accomplished creations; The Colsubsidio Citadel, a project model located in Bogotá, which encompasses 12,000 apartments, 50% of which are for low-income families. Its design quality and execution is impeccable. The detailed study of project models such as this one will, without a doubt, be extremely useful when facing housing and urban development challenges in Latin American countries.

Our recognition goes out to the architect Germán Samper, for his work, his talent, and his vision; but above all else, gratitude for his generosity and dearest friendship.

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Publications that have reviewed the work of Germรกn Samper

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Germán Samper Gnecco

Germán Samper was born in Bogotá on April 18, 1924. He studied architecture at the National University and graduated in 1947. Soon thereafter he joined the studio of French architect Le Corbusier in Paris, where he collaborated in different projects until 1954, including the Pilot Plan for Bogotá, the Court of Justice building and urban designs for Chandigarh (Punjab, India).

Selected Works, Distinctions

On his return to Colombia he worked as a freelance architect with the Banco Central Hipotecario [Central Mortgage Bank]. In 1958 he joined Esguerra Sáenz Urdaneta Suárez, where he was a partner and directed the design deparment. Over the course of the following forty years he designed and directed the construction of various projects with this firm. During this time he simultaneously embarked on a profound investigation of social and productive housing solutions and the problems of contemporary cities, especially in Latin America, including urban development and public spaces. He has dedicated a good portion of his time to putting on paper the evolution of his thinking, as the fruit of constant reflections. These investigations have been expressed in publications that account for this process.

With his daughter Ximena he founded the firm GX Samper Arquitectos in 1995 and is currently working with this firm.

Germán Samper dedicated several years of his life to education. In 1956 he was appointed Dean of the School of Architecture at Universidad de los Andes, a position he held until 1959. During this time he also taught design at this school. In 1970 he was guest professor for the course “Industrialization and Housing” organized by the CINVA (Inter American Housing Center). Since then he has held architecture workshops at the University of Chihuahua, the School of Architects of Ecuador and the School of Architecture in Panama, among others.

A remarkable aspect of his trajectory is his collection of travel sketches and drawings, created all throughout his life. He has used them to understand and study architecture and the city and extend his experience, enrich his creative mind and deepen his search. The collection currently has more than 4,000 drawings.

Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Commercial, Institutional and Industrial Architecture Sena building 17th Street. Offices and Educational Centre. Bogotá, 1956.

Casa de Observación de Menores (juvenile correctional facility). Bogotá, 1956.

Carmel Country Club. Bogotá, 1956.

Luis Ángel Arango Library. First and second stage. Bogotá, 1956 -1961.

Abbott Laboratories. Bogotá, 1961.

Gold Museum. First stage. Bogotá, 1963.

BCH building (Central Mortgage Bank offices). Bogotá, 1965.

Pan American Life Insurance building. First place in competition, Bogotá, 1967.

Administrative Centre for the Municipality of Cali (CAM). First place in competition.

With Ricaurte Carrizosa and Prieto. Cali, 1968.

Avianca building. First place in competition. With Ricaurte Carrizosa y Prieto. Bogotá, 1968.

Coltejer building. First place in competition. With Fajardo Vélez Ltda. and Jorge Manjarrés, Medellín, 1970.

Mazuera building (unbuilt). With Pizano Pradilla Caro and Restrepo Ltda., Bogotá, 1971.

Irotama Hotel. Santa Marta. First stage, 1965, second stage, 1971.

Engineering Laboratories, El Valle University. Cali, 1973.

Banco Popular building. With Juan José Posada, Medellín, 1974.

Nacional Theater, 71st Street. Bogotá, 1976.

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G.X. Samper Arquitectos

Convention Centre of Cartagena. First place in competition. With Taller de la Ciudad.

Eduardo Samper and Carlos Hernández. Cartagena, 1979.

Housing Projects

El Tiempo building. Newspaper printing facilities and offices. With Cristian de Groote, Bogotá, 1981.

Colsubsidio. Blocks 16, 32, 36, 37 and 38 architectonic design,1995 -1999; Parks design,1995-2000; Block 10 architectonic design, 2005-2011; Entrance building architectonic design, 2006-2011, Bogotá.

Financiera de Valores Seguros Andina building. Bogotá, 1981.

Banco de la República (Central Bank). Barranquilla’s branch, Barranquilla, 1984.

Ciudad Meléndez. Urban project, middle class housing. With Raúl Ortiz, Cali, 19951996.

Banco de Occidente building First place in competition. Bogotá, 1985.

Los Hayuelos neighborhood. Study of prototypes of occupation, urban design and economic feasibility. Urban plan and housing typologies. With Economistas Urbanos, Mario Noriega and Miguel Télllez, economist, Bogotá, 1995-1997.

El Universo Newspaper. Guayaquil, Ecuador. First stage, 1980; second stage, 1990.

Housing and Urban Design Projects

Tierragrata 1 & 2 neighborhood and housing design. With Maeco Ltda., Bogotá, 2001-2006.

La Fragua. Self-building housing. With Yolanda Martínez de Samper. Bogotá, 1958.

Las Mercedes – Icarus neighborhood. With Colsubsidio and Balcones de Andalucía, Bogotá, 2007-2008.

Belencito housing cluster. Belencito, 1964.

Carimagua neighborhood. High-density urban dwellings. Bogotá, 1968.

La Felicidad neighborhood, blocks 15,16,41,42 & 48. Low-income housing for Colsubsidio, Bogotá, 2010.

Sidauto neighborhood. Self-building housing. Bogotá, 1968.

Experimental Housing Project (Previ). Lima,(Perú), 1969.

La Alhambra neighborhood. Proyecto urbanístico. Bogotá, 1970.

Commercial, Institutional and Industrial projects

Santa Anita neighborhood. With Banderas Vela Arquitectos. Quito, (Ecuador), 1972.

Bogotá Free Zone industrial complex, 1995.

Tibaná – Intervil neighborhood. Bogotá, 1972.

Cundinamarca University, Girardot, 1997.

Real de Minas Citadel. Plaza Mayor and Los Naranjos neighborhood design. Bucaramanga, 1977.

Gold Museum, second stage, Bogotá, 1999-2004.

Colseguros competition. Bogotá,1979.

Our Lady of Reconciliation. Colsubsidio Citadel, Bogotá, 2000-2002

Panamerican School, coliseum. With Eduardo Samper, Bucaramanga, 2001.

Ciudad Guasare. Maracaibo, (Venezuela), 1981.

Hotel Cosmos. Third stage, suites and convention centre, Bogotá, 2003-2004.

Calle 100 Residential Complex (CVM). First place in competition for Caja de la Vivienda Militar. Bogotá, 1981.

BBVA. Building for the Mortgage Centre, Plan development. With Camilo Esguerra and Mauricio Rojas, Bogotá, 2006-2007.

Ciudad Bolívar. Low-income housing project. Bogotá, 1983.

Housing competition for Cementos Samper. Bogotá, 1984.

Urban Design and Landscape Architecture

Las Brujas housing cluster. Medellín, 1985.

Pedestrian bridge, National Park, Bogotá, 1997.

Colsubsidio Citadel. Master Plan, 1984. General urban design and sector 1, Bogotá, 1984 -1995. Sector 1 architectonic design, 1985 -1990. Single-family housing architectonic design, 1985. Multi-family housing architectonic design, 1986. Blocks 1 and 22 architectonic design, 1992. Blocks 23, 24 y 25 architectonic design, 1993.

Urban renovation for the first Metro line, POT Bogotá. With Camilo Santamaría and Mauricio Sánchez, Bogotá, 1998.

80th Street, Bogotá. Urban design, landscaping and urban furnishing. With Eduardo Samper, Bogotá, 1998.

Rehabilitation of environment management and preservation areas of the Córdoba - Juan Amarillo – Jaboque system. With Eduardo Samper y Gómez Cajiao, Bogotá, 1999-2000.

Distintions of the firm Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper National Architecture Prize. Colombian Biennale of Architecture 1970.

National Architecture Prize for the Ciudad Universitaria de Cali, Valle (with Jaime Cruz and other architects). Colombian Biennale of Architecture 1972.

Carrera 33 renovation. With Eduardo Samper, Bucaramanga, 2001.

Water Park Master Plan. With Lorenzo Castro, Alfonso Leyva, Michèlle Cescas and Eduardo Samper, Bucaramanga, 2002.

Honorary Mention for the second stage of the Luis Ángel Arango Library. Colombian Biennale of Architecture 1966.

Honorary Mention for San Francisco Residential Unit. Colombian Biennale of Architecture 1966.

Reformulation of the Road Plan, Transport and Public Pedestrian Space of the Land Use Plan (POT) – PNUD project. With Steer Davies Gleave and Camilo Santamaría, Bogotá. 2005.

Honorary Mention for EL Tiempo building. Colombian Biennale of Architecture 1981.

Study load for Bogotá – Urban component Steer Davies Gleave; With Juan Pablo Zorro, 2011.

Mention for El Tiempo building, Quito Biennale of Architecture 1981.

National Architecture Prize for Ciudad Bolívar. Colombian Biennale of Architecture 1984.

Housing reseach and urban design proposals Synthesis of a Doctrine on Housing Clusters. Research project on residential sectors focused on increasing density in low-rise buildings. Investigation performed over several years, with periodical publications in the journal Escala.

Municipal Agreement by the Bogotá City Council. Presentation and approval of the proposal Housing Clusters. This system became characteristic city typology. Bogotá, Colombia, 1968.

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Caracas Central University - Leopoldo Martínez Olavarría Chair on Housing: “The Nature of low-income housing“, “People and their individual habitat”, “ Building the city, the public and private sector role”, “The collective habitat, urban enclosure”, Caracas, Venezuela, 1998.

PREVI - International Experimental Housing Project sponsored by the UN, held in Lima, Peru.

With 13 architects from different nations participating. With Urbano Ripoll, 1969.

Minimum Standard of Urbanization. Project done for the Instituto de Crédito Territorial (ICT). Germán Samper directed a component involving urban design and housing. In association with Consultécnicos Ltda., Bogotá, Colombia, 1970.

Construction industry associations Congress–Construction association of Panama, “Government centre in the cities”, Ciudad de Panamá, Panamá, 1997.

The Alternate Networks, Use of the Standard Frame. The grid, consisting of blocks and walled architecture measuring 200 m x 200 m alternating with another one measuring 100 m x 100 m. The first one is for vehicles, and the second one a continuous grid for pedestrians.

20th Congress Panamerican Federation of Architects Associations, “Urban Enclosure: an alternative for Latin America”, Brasilia, Brazil, 1996.

Congress of Architects 1996, Cochabamba, guest lecturer, Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1996.

Urban Enclosure. Determination of urban spaces.

Outstanding Participations Teaching

World Design Conference, Tokyo, Japan, 1961.

Dean of the School of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, 1956-59.

Habitat I: UN conference on Human Settlements. “The right to space”. Vancouver, Canada, 1976.

“Urban Design Seminar – Workshop”, College of Architects of Ecuador - Pichincha Regional Branch Quito - Ecuador, 1990.

Architecture Workshop, University of Chihuahua, México, 2000.

Universal Forum on Cultures, Monterrey 2007, “The low-income sectors in Colombian cities. Diagnosis and proposals, Monterrey, México, 2007.

Architecture Workshop, Andes University, Bogotá, 2002.

United Nations invited critic guest for low-income housing, Quito Sur, Quito, Ecuador, 1990.

Workshop on low-income housing “From Academy to Reality”, Isthmus, Panamá, 2004.

Unesco, consultant for monitoring of Brasilia, Brazil, 1993.

Professor of the Master’s Program in Urban Design – School of Architecture, Javeriana University. Bogotá, Colombia, 2006-2010.

Professional Societies to which he belongs as a Full Member President of the Colombian Society of Architects, (1962 -1964).

Lectures

President of the Inter-American Planning Society for two periods (1976 -1980).

College of Architects of Costa Rica, X Congress of Architecture: “Social housing and local governments”, Costa Rica, 2011.

Colombian Construction Association (Camacol).

Bolivarian Society of Architects.

San Gerónimo University, “The low-income Habitat”, Havana, Cuba, 2010.

Colombia Planning Society.

New York Public Library, “Living Architecture”, New York, USA, 2009.

Inter-American Planning Society.

Illinois Institute of Technology, (IIT), “Reflections on Low-income Housing in Latin America”, Chicago, USA, 2009.

Labor Habitat.

Panamerican Federation of Architects Associations (FPAA).

Columbia University, “Reflections on Low-income Housing in Latin America”, New York USA, 2009.

Colombia’s representative to the Board of Directors of the Panamerican Federation of Architects Associations.

Unam - México, “50 years of the Inter-American Planning Society– A mosaic of opinions”, México D.F., México, 2007.

Member of Riba Team (Royal Institute of British Architects) for the accreditation of Schools of Architecture, National University, Bogotá and Medellín branches.

7 Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, El Salvador, 2006. th

Member of the Consultative Council of the Journal of the Inter-American Planning Society (SIAP) (1970-1974).

GEO Corporation, “30 years of GEO Corporation. Arquitect Carlos Garciavélez”, México D.F., México, 2006.

Member of UIA Housing Commission.

Colombian Society of Architects- Editorial Escala -Convive, “The Nature of low-income Housing.

Decalogue”, Bogotá, 2005.

Publications

First National Meeting of Housing, Infonavit, “Low-income Housing”, Acapulco, México, 2004.

Germán Samper: La Evolución de la Vivienda (The Evolution of Housing,) Editorial Escala, Bogotá, 2003.

4th Iberian-American Biennale of Architecture (Biau), “Low-income housing: Standpoints”, Lima, Peru, 2004.

El Recinto Urbano, la Humanización de la Ciudad (Urban Enclosure, the Humanization of the City), Editorial Escala, Bogotá, 1994.

University of Oklahoma, “Experience at Le Corbusier’s Atelier 1948-1953”, and “Lowincome Housing in Latin America”, Norman, Oklahoma, USA, 2003.

La Arquitectura y la Ciudad, Apuntes de Viaje (Architecture and the City, Travel Sketches), Editorial Escala, Bogotá, 1986.

Building and Housing Promotion Centre (Cihac) - Expo Cihac 2002, “Reflections on Lowincome Habitat”, México D.F., México, 2002.

“The Architect’s responsibility” in América Latina en su Arquitectura (Latin America in its Architecture), Roberto Segre, compiler. UNESCO 1975.

Seminar “Housing, the Urban Challenge”, “Management of the Low-income Habitat.

The Colombian Model”, México D.F., México, 2001.

16th México City Congress of Architects, “Architecture, Globalization and Poverty (Housing Solutions in Poverty)”, México D.F., México, 1999.

Chihuahua, desert workshop, “Living at the Center”, Chihuahua, México, 1999.

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Germán Samper, 1986.

Nominated to the Adexun – National Excellence Award for dedicated service to the nation – National University, 1998.

Domestic works declared as Assets of Cultural Interest

Nominated as representative of the Colombian Society of Architects (SCA) to the title Architect of the Americas, 1992.

Concert Hall of the Luis Ángel Arango Library (2010)

Diploma of Honor, Colombian Society of Architects, Medellín Regional Office, 1992.

City works designated as Architectural Heritage:

In 2001 the SCA established the category of Social Interest Housing as the Hábitat Popular prize, named after Germán Samper Gnecco.

Luis Ángel Arango Library Gold Museum

Tribute and Lifetime Award. SCA – 27th National Architecture Congress, 2001.

Abbott Laboratories

SCA – Recognition, together with Hernán Vieco, of the work of a lifetime in favor of national architecture. 20th Architecture Biennale, 2007.

Avianca building Germán Samper house

Mérito Uniandino Distinction for Lifetime Achievement, Uniandinos (Andes University Alumni Association), 2007.

Distinctions

Distinction awarded by the National Professional Architecture Council and its Assistant Professors (CPNAA) for social professional responsibility, 2007.

Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects.

Lifetime Achievement Tribute, Reunión del Concreto 2008, Asocreto [Association of Concrete Producers], Cartagena, Colombia, 2008.

Corresponding Member of the Chilean Society of Architects.

Corresponding Member of the Venezuelan Society of Architects.

Lifetime Achievement Award, Cemex Works Prizes, Bogotá, Colombia, 2009.

Member of the Bolivian Society of Architects.

Lifetime Achievement Award, Caring for Colombia Foundation, New York, USA, 2009.

Member of the Puerto Rican Society of Architects.

Ministry of Culture, Great Order of Cultural Merit, Bogotá, Colombia, 2010. 7th BIAU – Iberian-American Architecture Biennale,

Honorary member of the Mexican Society of Architects.

Honorary member of the Brazilian Institute of Architecture.

Trayectory in Colombia Award, Medellín, Colombia, 2010.

Honorary member of the Peruvian Planning Society

Honoris Causa Doctorate, Andes University, Bogotá, Colombia, 2011.

Honorary member of the Colombian Society of Architects.

Lifetime Achievement Awards, 14th Premios Lápiz de Acero, 2011.

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Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper

Design Workshop: Architects: Carlos Celis Cepero, Álvaro Osuna, Samuel Vieco, Enrique García Merlano, Jesús María Useche, Heberto Cediel, Julio Moré, Jaime Vélez Díaz, Germán Téllez Castañeda, Jorge Valencia Caro, Fernando Jiménez, Germán Suárez Betancourt, Alfonso Tamayo, Roberto Luna de la Vega, Juan Manuel Gutiérrez, Fernando Correa Muñoz, Gildardo Morales, Enrique Cerda Antúnez, Carlos Bermúdez, Bernardo Posse Paredes, Urbano Ripoll, Rafael Martínez Llaña, Iván Bernal, Josué Lerner, Alfonso Wiesner, Eduardo Samper Martínez, Mario García, Olga Pizano de Suárez, Eugenio Castillo, Carlos Barella, Fidel Olaya, Martha Lucía Acosta, Hugo Cardoso, Iván Moré, Fernando Erazo, Aníbal Alfaro, Felipe Sosa Díaz, José Fernández Duque, Víctor Bejarano, Pedro Urbano, Carlos Hernández, Ángel Velasco, Alfonso Reyes, Pablo Esguerra, Juan Rodríguez, Ulises Ortega, Felipe Muñoz, Diana López, Tomás Neu, Claudia Landucci, Amalia López, Vladimir Acosta, Marcela Ángel, John Thorsberg, María Lucía Barreto, Guillermo Fischer, Rafael Garzón, Daniel García, Pablo Londoño, Norma Ángel, María Teresa Silva, Jaime Sarmiento, Luis Restrepo, Rafael Esguerra Cleves, Ana María Esguerra Cleves, Fernando Sáenz, Augusto Gabrielli, Giovanni Rodríguez, Alejandro Cavanzo, Gabriel Hernández, Ximena Samper de Neu, Irma Arias, Eduardo Rocha, Santiago Rodriguez.

The architectural firm Esguerra Sáenz Urdaneta Suarez was founded in 1946 under the initiative of four architects: Rafael Esguerra García, Álvaro Sáenz Camacho, Rafael Urdaneta Holguín (partner until 1976) and Daniel Suarez Hoyos (partner until 1964). Germán Samper Gnecco subsequently joined the firm and became known as “Esguerra Sáenz Urdaneta Samper and Co.”. As of 1976 the firm was known as Esguerra Sáenz and Samper Ltda.

Drawing: Helena Estévez, Clara Inés Marroquín, Jairo Leal, Álvaro González Canal, Rodrigo de Zubiría, Fidel Olaya, Emilio Barreto, Juan Manuel Navarro, María Teresa Reyes, Esperanza Díaz.

The company was mainly devoted to the activities of architectural design and construction. It also realized restoration work under the direction of the architect Álvaro Sáenz, with research on affordable housing and urban design under the initiative of Germán Samper. The firm won several awards, some of which were in partnership with other architectural firms. The firm gradually became distinguished based on modern design and impeccable construction. From its early years of operation, the use of concrete, large windows, functional interior layouts, new material coatings of easy application, the absence old-fashioned decorating styles, marked a trend towards modernity.

Construction Department Architects: Juan Antonio Menéndez, Eduardo Buenahora, Eduardo Rocha, Gabriel Mayorga.

Engineers: Felipe Salazar Cleves, Álvaro Mazorra Gómez, Álvaro Bermúdez Lozano, Juan Pablo Ortega Samper, Jaime Concha.

Consultants Structures: Doménico Parma Marre, Jaime Muñoz Duque, Hernán Sandoval Arteaga, Francisco de Valdenebro.

Soil studies: Antonio Páez Restrepo, Roberto Maldonado, Pablo Sáenz.

Electric Installations: Otero Velásquez y Cía., Nicolás Arrubla y Cía., Enrique Zuleta Holguín.

Sanitation: Fernando Sabbagh.

Air conditioning and ventilation: Álvaro Tapias.

Interior design: Roberto Bermúdez, Fernando Reyes Elicechea.

Landscaping: Alfonso Leyva, Michèlle Cescas de Leyva.

Photography: Paul Beer, Germán Téllez, Álvaro González Canal, Diego Samper, Juan Mangini.

Administration: Alicia Gamba de Daza, Luis Eduardo Boada, Nohra Tolosa de Prieto, Yolanda Ospina, Elsa Mejía, Teresa Isaza, Enrique López González, Gabriel Mayorga, María Inés Montoya.

Álvaro Sáenz Camacho: An architect from the universities of MIT and Cornell in 1943. In the firm he assumed the role of General Manager. He collaborated with restoration work and decoration. He was also the promoter and organizer of the first exhibition of Colombian architecture in New York and served as the representative of the SCA (Colombian Society of Architects) at this event.

Rafael Esguerra García: An architect from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 1945. In the firm, he served as Director of Construction. He was also a consultant of design, details and building systems of the Departamento de Proyectos, as well as the coordinator of research and design of structural, electric, sanitary, and mechanical engineering. Founding partner and technical adviser of Estruco. in 1953 the firm specialized in concrete structures and civil engineering construction. He was also a partner and adviser of the firm Ingeniería Mecánica Colombiana IMC, a firm that specialized in design and heavy machinery fabrication for the construction of cables and post-stressed systems.

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GX Samper Arquitectos

Design Architects: Eduardo Rocha, Giovanni Rodríguez, Juan Mario Burbano, José David González, María Lucía Barreto, Irma Arias, María Rojas, Santiago Rodríguez, Marcela Luque, Alexandra Martínez V., Alejandra Cuervo, Camilo Bernal, Sonia Cubides, Diego Gutiérrez, César Peña, Óscar Mesa, Johan Camargo, Anderson Cárdenas, Héctor Chimbi, María Cecilia Revueltas, Daniel Talero, Román Flores, Mauricio Samudio, Natalia Mora, Santiago Pradilla, Ángela María Moreno, Steven Morales.

Practitioners: Martha Orjuela, Fernando Delgado, Rubén Posada, Esteban Martínez, Lina Mendoza, Salín Nader, Santiago Gil, Yanco Guillén, Diego Serrato, Luis Carlos Leveri Amaya, Sergio Andrés Muñoz Linares, Camila Botero, Natalia Mora y Mario Leal.

Drawing: Francia Pérez.

G.X Samper Arquitectos is an architecture and urban design firm conceived by Germán Samper and Ximena Samper de Neu. The firm was created in mid-1994 and continues to practice in the areas that were developed by Esguerra Sáenz and Samper Ltda.

The firm’s architects are Germán Samper and Ximena Samper Neu, who aside from her degree in architecture from the Universidad de los Andes, has a specialization in urban design from the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano and a masters degree from Harvard University.

The work of GX Samper Arquitectos attempts to find a balance in the distribution of technology, functional, social, environmental, and aesthetical aspects.

It encompasses a wide range of architecture in its relationship with the city’s urban landscape. After many years of work and investigation in low-income housing, the firm has become an advocate on the subject, and holds expertise both in regards to architecture and to its intimate relation with the city where urban design and management of public space in fundamental to jointly achieve the required quality.

It is in this manner that the firm has integral experience in all fields of architecture and urban planning with previous work in housing, public space, commercial zones, institutional work, and recreation. Furthermore, it also takes part in renovations, office spaces, hospitals, hotels, industry, parks, landscaping, and many other areas.

Consultants Structures: Francisco de Valdenebro, Alberto Pachón, Hernán Sandoval Arteaga, Luis Guillermo Aicardy, Mauricio Cortez, Ramiro Cortés, Rodrigo Cortés, Luis Enrique García.

Soil studies: Roberto Maldonado, Pablo Sáenz.

Electric installations: Juan Ramón Eslava, Álvaro Ángel.

Sanitation: Alveiro Téllez y Alba Lucía Rojas.

Bioclimatic: Jorge Ramírez.

Air conditioning and ventilation: Álvaro Tapias.

Landscaping: Alfonso Leyva, Michelle Cescas, Noboru Kawashima, Martha Cecilia Fajardo, Diana Wiesner.

Photography: Diego Samper, Eduardo Samper, Catalina Samper, Bonny Forero.

Collaborations with GX Samper Architects: Mauricio Rojas y Camilo Esguerra (BBVA Building), Gonzalo Correal (Consultant), Eduardo Samper (Urban design and landscaping, Zona Franca de Bogotá and Colegio Panamericano Bucaramanga), Juan Pablo Zorro (mobility, public space and freight), Camilo Santamaría (Plan Vial), Marcela Ángel (competitions).

Administration: Carmenza Peñuela, Jorge Chaparro, Cristina Pardo, Jaidivi Jiménez, Clemencia Vásquez, Estela García.

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Authors Balkrishna Doshi

Juan Pablo Aschner Rosselli

After initial study at the J J School of Architecture, Bombay, he worked for four years with Le Corbusier (1951–54) in Paris and four more years in India in Ahmedabad.

His office Vastu-Shilpa (environmental design) was established in 1955. Has been a member of the Jury for several international and national competitions including the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts and Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Apart from his international fame as an architect, Dr. Doshi is equally known as educator and institution builder. He has been the first founder Director of the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad (1962–72), first founder Director of the School of Planning (1972–79), first founder Dean of the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (1972–81), founder member of Visual Arts Centre, Ahmedabad and first founder Director of the Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad. Dr. Doshi has been instrumental in establishing the nationally and internationally known research institute Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research in Environmental Design. The institute has done pioneering work in low-cost housing and city planning. As an academician, Dr. Doshi has been visiting the U.S.A. and Europe since 1958 and has held important chairs in American Universities. In recognition of his distinguished contribution as a professional and as an academician, Dr. Doshi has received several international and national awards and honours

Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes. M.Arch. with honours.

Currently pursuing doctoral studies in Art and Architecture, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, with a research project on the work of Rogelio Salmona. He coauthored the book 4˚Lat. N 2.600 msnm. Daniel Bermúdez arquitectura (4˚ N 2,600 MASL. Daniel Bermúdez Architecture) in 2010, and authored Contrapunto y confluencia en el concierto arquitectónico Biblioteca Virgilio Barco (Counterpoint and Confluence in the Virgilio Barco Library Architectural Concert) in 2008. He has also written over twenty articles published in a number of Latin American architecture, urbanism, and social science journals. He has professional experience in architectural design and building for private clients and public institutions. The outcome of this work culminated in a collection of projects and works built at different scales and for various uses in Colombia.

He is presently a full-time professor in the Department of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes.

Hernando Vargas Caicedo Bachelor of Civil Engineering, Universidad de los Andes. Master of Architecture and Urban Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. Associate Professor in Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering; former Dean of the School of Architecture and Design; director of the Master’s program in Engineering and Building Management, Universidad de los Andes. President of the Colombian Association of Schools of Architecture and of the Association of Schools and Departments of Architecture of Latin America, and member of the National Professional Architecture Council. Researcher on history of building technique in Colombia, and author of articles, chapters, as well as books on architecture, urban planning, building, technology and history of building. Editor and co-author of the books Le Corbusier en Colombia (Le Corbusier in Colombia) and Cincuenta años en la construcción de Colombia (Fifty Years in Colombia’s Construction). Honorary member of the Colombian Architects’ Association, and corresponding member of the Colombian Academy of the History of Engineering and Public Works. Holds a consultancy and a professional practice in architecture and structural design. His work has been selected at Colombian biennales.

María Cecilia O’Byrne Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.), Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, where she has been History and Project Professor since 1996. Master of History: Art, Architecture and City, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, and Doctor in Architectural Projects, Escuela Superior de Arquitectura, Barcelona, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, with a European Degree Mention for her dissertation Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital Project, supervised by Professor Josep Quetglas. Her numerous articles have appeared in Massilia: Anuario de estudios lecorbuserianos (Annals of Le Corbusier Studies), and in Le Corbusier – Plans, among other publications. As director of the Project, City, and Architecture research group at the Universidad de los Andes, she led the project Le Corbusier in Bogotá, 1947-1951. Book-Exhibition-Seminar, which won the Dissemination and Publications prize at the XXII Colombian Architecture Biennale, held in 2010.

José Antonio de Ory Diplomat and writer. Has lived in Colombia (in three occasions), on India, and in New York, and divides his time between Madrid and Bogotá. In 2004, he published Ángeles clandestinos. Una memoria oral del poeta Raúl Gómez Jattin (Clandestine Angels: An Oral Memoir of poet Raúl Gómez Jattin) in Colombia.

Eduardo Samper Martínez Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes, with a specialization in Environmental and Urban Planning, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, with a Hubert Humphrey fellowship. Currently, he is a Professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and is connected with its Master of Architecture (M.Arch.) program. Lecturer at universities in Europe, United States and Latin America. His architectural works have been published in Colombia and internationally, and have won prizes in different categories at the Colombian Architecture Biennale: National Prize for the Customs Building in Barranquilla, as well as mentions for the Bavaria Central Park, El Recreo housing development, Bogotá’s Timiza Park and Bucaramanga’s Water Park. First Prize at the Quito Biennale for Bavaria Central Park, and mentions for public land reclamation in the Egipto neighbourhood at that Biennale, as well as for the Bulevar Niza Shopping Centre at the Architectural Marble Awards in Carrara (Italy). In 2002, he published the book Arquitectura Moderna en Colombia, Época de Oro (Modern Architecture in Colombia: Golden Age).

Rodrigo Cortés Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, with Masterlevel courses and residence in Heritage Buildings in Upper Corsica (France). Professor at the Universidad Nacional since 1984, where he has been Academic Coordinator of the M.Arch. program, and of the Doctor of Art and Architecture program’s Architectural Project Option; director of the Architecture Museum and of the Architecture and Project research group . He is the current Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts. Curator of an exhibition on Le Corbusier’s Master Plan for Bogotá (1989), with several published articles, along with an exhibit commemorating seventy years of Bogotá’s University Campus (2006) and two books on the subject. Research Prize from the Colombian Architecture Biennales of 1992 and 1996, and mentions in that of 2002 for his morpho-typologic study of Bogotá’s savannah, and in the XII Pan-American Biennale for the collective book Patrimonio Urbano en Colombia (Urban Heritage in Colombia).

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Fernando Arias Lemos

Mauricio Téllez Vera

Associate Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Works in the Doctoral program in Architectural Project, the M.Arch. program, and the B.Arch.’s Project Option. Doctor of Architecture (D.Arch.), Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (2005). B.Arch., Universidad de los Andes (1988).Ricardo Daza Caicedo

Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad Piloto de Colombia. Bachelor and Master of Anthropology, Universidad Nacional. Researcher, consultant, docent. Coordinator of the Unit for Science and Research Development (UDCI), Faculty of Fine Arts, Universidad Antonio Nariño.

Marcela Ángel Samper

Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Master of History, Art, Architecture and City. Advanced Studies Diploma in Architectural Projects. D.Arch. from the Department of Architectural Projects, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña; Professor of Theory at the Universidad de los Andes. Professor of lower level Master and Doctoral courses, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Professor in academic institutions and universities in Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, Italy, and Spain.

Director of the Leopoldo Rother Architecture Museum (2010-2011). Has published Buscando a Mies, (Actar, 2000), English version: Looking for Mies (Birkhäuser, 2000), German version: Auf der suche nach Mies (Birkhäuser, 2000).

Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes, Master of Science in Architecture Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, 2002, Architecture and Urban Planning program. Independent architect with experience in design, development and coordination of housing, urban, public space, office, and institutional projects, as well as in interior architecture design and building in residential and institutional projects, offices and commercial buildings. She has worked in association with the firms GX Samper Arquitectos, Weiss/Cortés, Lorenzo Castro and Camilo Esguerra, among others. Professor in the Department or Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Design, Universidad de los Andes, in the areas of Project, Graduating Project, Urban Project, and in the Housing Workshop for over ten years. Founding member and researcher of the Project: Architecture and City (PAC) research group at the same university, in the fields of architectural project, urban project, and housing.

Carlos Campuzano Castelló Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes. Master of Revitalization of Monumental Collections from the Instituto de Cultura Hispánica in Madrid. Full Professor of the Faculty of Architecture Workshop in that university; he is the current director of the International Architecture Workshop in Cartagena. Was selected for the exhibition Architectures Colombiennes (Colombian Architectures) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1980, and for the itinerant exhibit Arquitectura en Colombia y el sentido de lugar (Architecture in Colombia and Sense of Place) in 2005. Lecturer, juror and guest professor in fora, biennales, competitions and universities in America and Europe. His work has been published in books and journals, and selected at architecture biennales in Colombia, Chile and Ecuador; among other awards, prizes in housing with the Residential Development La Calleja at the VII Colombian Biennale and the I Pan-American Biennale in Quito, as well as the Junta de Andalucía Award with a project for the La Capilla del Campito Library, from the Faculty of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes, awarded at the X Pan-American Biennale in Quito in 1996.

Ximena Samper Martínez Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes, . Specialization in Urban Design, Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Master of Urban Design, Harvard University.

Connected to the Department of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes, for fifteen years, where she is Design Workshop professor in the Housing and City Option.

Together with other professors and the Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, she carried out the Intermediary Landscape –Caracas International Workshop. She has taught urban design courses at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Development Studies. Former president of the Colombian Architects’ Association – D.C. and Cundinamarca regional branches. She began her professional practice at the Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper firm, and for the last seventeen years she is associated with her father at GX Samper Architects, a firm specialising in urban design and housing. Some of her most celebrated urban design and architecture projects are Ciudad Meléndez (at ESYS), several city blocks of the Ciudadela Colsubsidio such as 21, 24, 38, and 10, Housing Developments Tierragrata, Ícaros, Las Mercedes and social housing for Colsubsidio in La Felicidad. In architecture, the Bogotá Industrial Free Zone, the Gold Museum expansion, and the Clara Casas Morales School stand out.

Yolanda Martínez de Samper Studied in the United States and France. Has devoted her life to the study and advocacy of the human being, working in various areas, especially as social housing developer, and vitally contributing to neighborhood developments such as La Fragua, Sidauto, El Tejar, and Vereda San Isidro, among others. This objective and her experience have led her to participate in different international events, she has held government positions, and has authored publications such as Mujer, familia y desarrollo (Woman, Family, and Development), La familia, un poder (The Family, a Power), La persona humana y su hábitat (Human Beings and Their Habitat).

Sara Topelson Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad Nacional Autónoma in Mexico. Studies in Architecture Theory at the Polytechnic National Institute, and in Art History at the National Fine Arts Institute. Together with her husband, Jose Grimberg, they established Grimberg and Topelson Architects, and have carried out residential, educational, cultural, industrial, and commercial projects, as well as recreational centres. Former Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Anahuac and its Urban Planning Workshop.

She leads the International Academy of Architecture (IAA). Since 1982, she has been in charge of external relations for the College of Architects of Mexico, and is a council member of the International Union of Architects (UIA) since 1990, of which she was the first female president. In 1998, she was honoured with the Order of Arts and Letters of Mexico.

Fernando Jiménez Mantilla Bachelor of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes. Master of Urban Design, Harvard University. SPURS Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. Dean and Professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Universidad de los Andes. Professor of the Master’s programs in Urban and Regional Development, Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas and Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. Collaborator in architect Samper’s Design Workshop for the projects Grace Line building in Buenaventura, Polo Club church, and later ESUS, as well as for the Gold Museum building and the competition projects for the Central Mortgage Bank and Palic, current headquarters of Ecopetrol. In Cusego, he worked on the project for the Grancolombiana Fishing Fleet building. A pioneer of the country’s urban design field, he has carried out the projects Paulo VI, Ciudad Salitre and Urban Renovation Bavaria Central Park (Bogotá), Ciudadela El Recreo (Quito), Barranquillita and La Concordia (Bucaramanga), among others.

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Photography and illustration Photography:

Illustration:

Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Archives

Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Archives

40, 43d, 43c, 43h, 46a, 46c, 46d, 48a, 48b, 49b, 49c, 49d, 53, 55, 58, 60c, 62, 63, 68b, 68c, 69a, 70, 72a, 72b, 72c, 72d, 73a, 73d, 73e, 84, 90a, 91, 93, 94, 163, 167, 195, 236, 237, 255,

42, 43e, 43f, 43g, 43b, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 206, 207, 213, 226, 236, 238, 239 Bogotá Municipal Archives – Esguerra Sáenz y Samper Collection

Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Archives- Álvaro González Canal

8, 11, 34a, 35b, 37, 38, 39, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53e, 54, 55, 57, 59, 64, 65, 75, 79, 86, 87, 88, 90, 92, 93, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 122, 123, 124, 125, 128, 129, 130, 131, 162, 163, 165, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, 180, 181, 185, 187, 188, 189, 189, 195, 197, 200, 201, 218, 220, 221, 227, 229, 231, 233

44, 44, 60a, 69b, 69c, 110, 111, 112 Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Archives - Germán Téllez 50, 51, 53b, 53c, 60b, 68a, 68d, 73b, 73c, 74, 75a, 75b, 75c, 78a, 78b, 79b, 79c, 90b, 113, 114, 117,

H. Camargo 187

Esguerra, Sáenz and Samper Archives - Paul Beer

Le Corbusier Foundation- Uniandes-GI-PCA

66, 67,

18, 27

Germán Samper Archives

Le Corbusier Foundation

15, 35c, 36, 37, 45, 134, 170, 172

17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 143, 145, 153

Hernán Díaz

Germán Samper

49a, 164, 166 130, 211b

18, 20, 44, 45, 50, 55, 60, 61, 77, 94, 96, 113, 115, 128, 129, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144. 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 178, 182, 192, 196, 198, 199, 204, 234, 235, 239, 243, 244, 245

Fundación Le Corbusier / ADAGP

GX Samper Arquitectos.

142

202, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 214, 216, 233, 236

Fundación Le Corbusier

Peter Land

12, 14, 15, 16

176

Nicolás Galeano

Proa Magazine

246

42, 46e

Nicolás Galeano - Ataca films

Jaime Vélez

89, 202, 203, 205, 206a, 207a, 207b, 208b, 209c, 209e, 208d, 210a, 211c, 210c, 211f, 214a

74, 172, 173, 175, 175

Bonny Forero

Enrique Guzmán 132, 133 Catalina Samper 208a, 209a, 209b, 208c, 209f, 211a, 210b, 211d, 211e, 212a, 213 Diego Samper 4, 6, 39, 53d, 56, 58, 59, 61, 76, 77, 79a 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 88, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 161, 170, 171, 177, 178, 179, 181, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 205, 206b, 206c, 206d, 206e, 207c, 207d, 207e, 207f, 209d, 212b, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 223, 224, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 249, 251 Eduardo Samper 46b, 47, 52, 58, 58, 114, 115 Peter Land 176 Sociedad Colombiana de Arquitectos 43a 254

Yolanda Martínez and Germán Samper, Paris, 1952

Printed in Panamericana Formas e Impresos, S.A. Bogotá, Colombia August 2011

GERMAN SAMPER GERMAN SAMPER