Learning from the best, understanding the traditions that surround you and acquiring your own style to put it at the service of society were the keys to
Rogelio Salmona's
professional success
.
With his constructions, he became a Latin American benchmark in the history of architecture and the person who transformed and recovered the capital of Bogotá from the dark years of violence and drug trafficking with works that became a world reference.
Rogelio Salmona's professional career is characterized by being strongly linked to Latin American roots and traditions and the urban context, and stands out for the use of indigenous materials, such as red brick and exposed concrete.
Its architecture has always been linked to the landscape and the Colombian light and is recognizable for its harmonious forms and respect for the natural environment in which it is located.
In fact, the construction of public spaces was a constant throughout his work.
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Latin America as a school of architecture
The most prominent Colombian architects have always assumed brick constructions as a vindication of a national material that became recognized throughout the world, but among them, Salmona represents its greatest exponent with the nickname of
the transformer of cities
. In fact, Rogelio Salmona was the architect of the Pro-City Foundation, an organization dedicated to protecting and developing Bogotá and other Colombian cities.
Rogelio Salmona was
born in Paris 92 years ago. Born to a French father and a Spanish mother, the political and social tensions that existed in Europe in the 1930s led the family to settle in the Colombian capital in 1934. Little Rogelio grew up in the Bogota neighborhood of Teusaquillo and continued receiving a Francophone education although throughout his life he always identified himself as Colombian and had that nationality.
Salmona finished her Baccalaureate at the French High School in Bogotá and began a career in Architecture at the National University of Colombia, where she studied for three semesters. The arrival of the violent period known as
El Bogotazo
, which began on April 9, 1948 and lasted ten years, interrupted his studies. He then made the decision to travel to his native France, where he worked for almost a decade as an apprentice and collaborator with the legendary Swiss architect Le Corbusier, whom he had met on a trip to Bogotá years before.
Without a doubt, the projects and trips of this time marked his personal and professional profile.
In 1953 he got to know the south of France, Spain and North Africa, taking an interest in the history of architecture.
The use of water in Arabic architecture in Spain, Moorish constructions and also pre-Columbian Central American ones, such as Teotihuacan, Uxmal and Chichén Itzá, inspired and forged his professional personality.
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After his travels and everything he learned with Le Corbusier and Francastel, Salmona returned to Colombia in 1958 prepared to transform his country through architecture. He resumed his studies and in 1962 he received his architect degree, at the age of 33, determined to change the urban landscape from the simple, using bricks, for example, because it was traditionally done in Bogotá. He also used water as an element of connection with the environment, with canals, pools and ponds, achieving a harmonious style now recognized internationally as the national architectural style of Colombia.
He began his architectural practice with individual housing projects, multifamily and large urban projects, with which he broke with the canons established at that time and that aroused international interest from the first moment.
The most outstanding project of this time is Residencias El Parque (1964-1970), not only for its architecture but also for its generosity in the treatment of its public spaces.
Known as Torres del Parque, it is a complex of curved red brick apartments seen in the center of the city, which is considered the architect's masterpiece.
Then came the Guest House (1982) in Cartagena, a work influenced by colonial and pre-Columbian military architecture, and the General Archive of the Nation (1991), in which the utilitarian and ornamental use stands out once again. of the brick.
Together with a group of contemporary architects, among which Fernando Martínez, Hernán Vieco and Guillermo Bermúdez stood out, they managed to explore the constructive and formal potential of brick until turning it into a sign of identity of the Colombian capital, which began to dye its neighborhoods the orange color of fired clay.
In later works such as the Postgraduate Human Sciences building at the National University (1998) and the Virgilio Barco Public Library (2001), one of his latest works, Salmona is the one in which he best managed to harmonize dynamic spaces that were integrated into the environment. scenery.
It is located in a park surrounded by cycle paths and gardens and managed to create a feeling of interaction between the people who lived there by challenging the violence and uncertainties caused by political issues.
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Architect of reality
Rogelio Salmona, materials of the imagination
The architecture of Salmona achieved national and international recognition, among which the National Prize for Colombian Architecture in 1986, the Prince Claus Prize in 1998, the Decoration for Arts and Letters, in the Official Degree, awarded by the Government. French (2007) and, above all, that in 2003 he became the first Latin American to receive the prestigious Alvar Aalto award in Finland.
Rogelio Salmona
died in Bogotá on October 3, 2007 due to cancer at the age of 78. With his work, he not only managed to claim indigenous building materials, but also gave the Colombian capital a splendor that has been classified as a renaissance after the darkest time of violence. This recognition for his contribution to Colombia is reflected in a phrase by Rogelio himself when asked about the quality of his work, to which he replied that the only way to know is to wait, because “good architecture becomes ruins, while that bad architecture disappears ”. Yours will undoubtedly endure.