Essay. Beginning of the idea of culture and music in the public space in Medellín, Colombia

Sonoro: Public Sound Furniture ESSAY: Beginning of the idea of culture and music in the public space in Medellín, Colombia *This essay is part of the project research and was written by Kevin J. Fonseca Laverde. It was written for the theorical subject “Proyecto y Ciudad”. Professor Mario Román.

Why the city of Medellin has been taken as a reference and what factors have facilitated this process of recognition?

Medellin, capital of Antioquia Department, is a city located in the village of Aburrá, central region of the mountains of the Andes in South America.

During the last twenty years, the city has been center of great social, economic and cultural changes that made this city focus of what is today recognized as one of the most innovative city at global level.

It is necessary to clarify that currently while the good news invade Medellin, its citizens do not forget the past and make it as a factor that drives them and leads them to improve the region they live in .The following text will develop in more detail the elements implicit in the present Medellin; the city of hasty changes, a briefly recalling of its history, its surrounding context and the reflection on his disturbing future.

Cities are places of interaction between living beings and elements that mediate the interaction with the environment where they inhabit. The enormous growth of the city, as the axis of life, has concluded in the dissociation of the collective, from the rupture of the social classes to the separation between rural and urban, blurring the actual function of the city and turning it into area of inequalities.

This reality impacted the city of Medellin, some time ago, before it was one of the most recognized metropolis of Colombia, its late and fast consolidation as an urban center of Antioquia along with Valle de Aburra. In this way, Medellin became the second largest city economically and politically, in addition to Bogota. Then, at the beginning of the 20th century it was the main industrial center of Colombia, and due to the industrial revolution in Medellin, for the sake of their development, it helped people in several regions to find new economic opportunities in a new growth area, and the advent of religious communities and the foundation of churches. In 1912, the economic growth gave rise to the manufacturing sector, and left behind the agricultural and livestock practices, giving way to the manufacturing sector. This attracted more foreigners who settled in the "newly" founded and new capital of Antioquia. Because of the hurried growth, steps were taken to improve the growth of Medellin, such as the channeled of the Santa Helena stream in 1930, later it rectified and channeled the Medellín River in 1947, places which eventually become the axis of mobility and brought large changes in the dynamics of the metropolis. At this time, it was already evident the aim of turn Medellin into a city of constant modernization and that idea is noted in the regulatory plan of 1950, to the benefit of some and disadvantages of others (mostly).This idea of planning was evident and modernization benefited private interests over public interests, which facilitated the disparity of the community and private sectors. Subsequently, Medellin made possible to create the Office of metropolitan planning in 1973, which clarifies the real objective of city and falls within the practice of assuming the development of Medellín as a whole, so the urban development is routed to a new path that soon makes visible obstacles The city, between economic peaks and urban changes must face one of the most strong and remembered decade in its history, the 80's, the misuse of soils; urbanization without control on the East and West slopes due to the migration of rural population in situation of vulnerability (displaced), penetration of drug trafficking and illegal armed gangs. These agents affected the economic, social and cultural growth of the city since the measures taken were hasty, in some cases, they were not suitable and they did not get the objective to improve the quality of life of the citizens. A critical point was the recruitment of young people to take part in these armed organizations; this group was designated and marked by the State and its context as a "social problem", the stigma without awareness of the youth people had no future. This audiovisual narration is available in digital format, it is presented in the film Rodrigo D no future and this film was shot in the city of Medellin, in 1990 and tells the strong oppression received by a young man and his companions, who succumbed to the magnitude of the above mentioned problems.

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Sonoro: Public Sound Furniture From the Decade of the 90's, the social and administrative actions, under the harsh reality that was going on the city, had a significant breakthrough that marked the roadmap at the moment. It began the process of institutionalization to deliver public spaces for the young people of Medellin, who established compromises and the values of nature citizen to take charge of the self-organization of these spaces. Here it is important to mention Georg Simmel, who reflects about the fundamental conflict of our culture, understanding the culture as the thing that constitutes to the human be, this definition brings both to the subject as to the object, the subject as actor that meets a significant role and to the object as the environment, here the mediation is performed by means of the culture. In this point is where Simmel mentions the Constitution and, at the same time, division of this concept, the objective culture and subjective culture, where the first one is understood as the demonstrations that people have produced, while the second one explains the actor's ability to interact, to understand, to control the components of the objective culture. Each individual has a conflict created by his own ideal of culture, that one which is built through time and in an individual way and of which lose the control even more in the modernity, which detaches from the subjective (own knowledge and identity creation) to the acquisition of goods and accumulation that lose their symbolism. That is why Simmel study themes as the division of labor that leads the subject to individuality, affecting his personality subjective culture - practice which limits him/her to understand dynamics of social circle to which he belongs to. (City) The city of Medellín rises from these two decades of found problems to become as one of the capital cities of greater development, implementing policies of integration where the sense of ownership resonates throughout the urban area of the metropolis and echoes in the population at national and international level. The City faced a marginalized in violent neighborhoods growth, the Administration and its citizens faced the challenge of finding a solution to improve the quality of life of people living in slums. This goal was achieved successfully and some neighborhoods became points of reference and pride for the citizens. Again, the axis of this transformation was culture, directly linked to areas of knowledge, the result of a strategy that can be perceived is strong but that it has not been applied in many cases, the access to the culture not as a privilege but as a right. Allowing open to people in vulnerable conditions the opportunity to see the world, and teaching to the world these magical places where social practices are completely different and rich in identity. The creation of public space, with access to internet, infrastructure and elements that were only founded in the urban area, facilitate understanding the people that "pretty" and the design do not only belong to the privileged classes.

Architecture, art, dance, music, artistic interventions have been recognized as cultural factors that make up the community in order to improve communication and coexistence between them, giving it a completely different meaning to the practice of living spaces and to understand each of these disciplines, from its ignorance to its utilization as urban intervention in collaboration. The design should not be oblivious to these dynamics of today, for a majority is being understood as a commercial medium that is focused on the capital system, rejecting his versatile knowledge and tool axis that integrates interdisciplinary way disciplines and in the future can be, thanks to other areas of knowledge, an axis of transversal construction of culture and society. That is why it is important to make the invitation to designers, who exercised, to those who are studying and to those in the future will believe in discipline, for that link between them, as individuals, from the subjective culture, understanding and dialoguing with the context and providing the harmony of the factors that constitute it.

Research sources: ● Ruíz,Jaime .2009. Antecedentes Urbanísticos de Medellín. Universidad de Antioquia. Medellín: Biblioteca UDEA ● Bonilla, Juan; Yepes, Daniel; Pirazan, Jasbleidy; Jimenez, David; Arroyave, Santiago; Ríos, Andrés; Rodriguez, Norman. 2011. Juventud y política en Medellín: Construyendo nuevas visiones. Medellín: Grupo de Investigación Gestión y Políticas Públicas Territoriales (GPPT) ● Web page Colombia Travel, Marca Colombia. http://www.colombia.travel/es/adondeir/andina/medellin 3

“Sonoro� is the name project because the definition of sonority and the develope of sound objects