STOREFRONT. LETTERS TO THE MAYOR: Bogota. col

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Storefront presents Letters to the Mayor: Bogotá, as part of the global Letters to the Mayor project. Each iteration presents a collection of letters by more than 100 architects, addressing the most pressing issues facing their city. 

 

Bogotá has gone through a very difficult eight-year period with regards to the city’s power structures and specifically mayoral power. The notable corruption scandal perpetuated by Samuel Moreno in 2008, during the construction of one of the city’s main highways, unleashed a chain of events including over three acting Mayors, two removed and disqualified mayors and one convicted Mayor. This has resulted in a serious lack of leadership and a notable sense of abandonment, corruption and abuse of power that has generated utter disbelief towards the figure of the Mayor in Bogotá.

Elections for Mayoral office will take place this year on October 25th, in this dim context, these elections have become particularly important for Bogotá. Citizens are worn out and tired of the city’s lack of organization, wondering if change is possible. That is why we believe it is imperative for cultural agents such as CAMPO to generate interstices that allow for new voices, forms of dialogue and points of view regarding the city to be made visible, in order to create a discourse that is different from the narrative that has become the norm.

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Cardboard has been one of the most widely used materials in the process of urban and architectural thought. The use of this traditional material in the construction of the brick façade on a 1:1 scale, gives evidence, thanks to its quick deterioration, documented here, of the methodology and process used in Latin America for the construction of cities. Processes with short-term visions generally associated to the promise of progress and a better future.