Bogotá, Colombia

Bogotá, Colombia

According to abbreviationfinder, Bogotá is the capital city of Colombia, South America.

From the originally more than 30 historical bridges – v. a. due to the overbuilding of the rivers San Francisco (today Avenida G. Jiménez de Quesada) and San Agustín (today Avenida 6 and Calle 7) at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century – only a few survived, including the neoclassical Puente del Común (1792, from Esquiaqui) over the Río Bogotá near Chía on today’s northern border of the urban area.

Evidence of the republican 19th century are the former Panóptico prison (1874–81, built according to plans by Reed from 1850; National Museum since 1948) and the Teatro Colón (1886–92, by Cantini) opposite the colonial building Palacio de San Carlos (Begun in 1828, redesigned several times; temporarily the official seat of the President, since 1979 Foreign Ministry).

The buildings from the first decades of the 20th century reflect international stylistic pluralism: Estacion de la Sabana station, neoclassical (1913–17, redesigned by William Lidstone and Mariano Sanz de Santamaría; 1954–55), Palacio de San Francisco, neoclassical and neo-baroque (1918–33, Lelarge and Jaramillo); Teatro Faenza, with Art Nouveau facade (1922–24, by Juan Ernesto González Concha and others); The churches of El Carmen (1927–38, by Giovanni Buscaglione) and Lourdes (1937, completed by Jaramillo) are neo-Gothic, while the church of Las Nieves (1937, also by Jaramillo) is neo-Romanesquecompleted); the Teatro Colombia (also called Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, 1937, by Richard Aek, F. S. Ley et al.) and the National Library (1933–38, by Alberto Wills Ferro) shape forms of Art Deco.

The university town in the west of Bogotá was designed on an oval floor plan by Leopoldo Rother from 1935 and built on with various faculties in the rational Bauhaus style until the 1940s (including Facultad de Derecho, 1938–40, by Wills Ferro; Facultad de Ingeniería, 1943– 45, by Rother and Bruno Violi). The Teusaquillo residential area built over the summer residence of the Muisca princes, which was destroyed in the 16th century, is characterized by town houses from the 1930s and 1940s in a historicizing style based on English models.

Influenced by the visit of Le Corbusier (1947) after the destruction of the Bogotazo uprising in 1948, modern business districts with concrete high-rises emerged north of the center along the Carrera Séptima traffic axis: the skyscrapers at Centro Internacional (1950s to 1970s) with the complex des Conjunto Bavaria (1963-67, from Obregón & Valenzuela) enclose the colonial church Recoleta de San Diego (1629 and 1761), which has meanwhile been pushed back to a traffic island. The 161 m high Edificio Avianca (1966–69, by Esguerra, Sáenz, Urdaneta, Samper & Ricaurte) and the 192 m high Torre Colpatria (1978–79, by Pizano, Pradilla & Caro) are among the most famous skyscrapers in the city Skyline is now also characterized by numerous modern new buildings. The tallest building is the 240 m high Bacatá skyscraper.

Bogotá characteristic brick architecture embody the condominium Torres del Parque (1965-72) by Rogelio Salmona at the edge of the bullring (1936-48, from Santiago de la Mora, today museum), also by Salmona designed building of the Museum of Modern Art (1977 –85) and the National Archives (1989–92). The Planetarium (1968–69, by Pizano, Pradilla & Caro) in Parque Independencia is the seat of the Natural History Museum, the municipal art gallery Santafé and the Museum for Urban Development.

The outskirts of the city are characterized in the south by social housing (e.g. Ciudad Kennedy, 1960s) and illegal settlements, in the north by closed residential complexes of the upper class and large shopping centers with North American characteristics (Unicentro, 1974-76, by Pedro Gómez, Hernando Casas and Juan Pizano).

History

Bogotá was founded on August 6, 1538 under the name Villa de la Santa Fe by G. Jiménez de Quesada, the conqueror of the small kingdoms of the Muisca (Chibcha); since the 18th century it has been called Santa Fe de Bogotá, since 1819 its current name. In 1598 Bogotá became the capital of the Spanish general captainate and later viceroyalty of New Granada, in 1718 of the Republic of Greater Colombia and, after its collapse (1830), of today’s Colombia.

In April 1948 the 9th meeting of the Pan American Union took place in Bogotá, which led to the establishment of the Organization of American States.

Natural resources

Colombia has a large number of mineral resources, which, due to the inaccessible nature, have only been partially used up to now. With estimated reserves of 6.7 billion t, the country has the largest hard coal deposits in Latin America (especially on the La Guajira peninsula). Most of the coal is exported. Oil production has increased significantly in recent years due to newly discovered deposits (fields Cusiana and Cupiagua east of Bogotá). The proven reserves (2016: 300 million t) are expected to be exhausted by 2020. The most important natural gas deposits are in the La Guajira department. The deposits of precious metals (gold, silver, platinum), emeralds (leading global producer), iron, nickel, copper ores and rock salt are also important.

Bogotá, Colombia

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