The designs of Rogelio Salmona comprise over 70 projects built during the past 40 years and range from domestic to large housing complexes as well as institutional architecture. He is undoubtedly one of the most prolific and significant architects of Latin America.

Wanting to study fine arts but advised by his father to take a similar but more pragmatic route, Salmona entered the National University to study architecture in 1948. His first year of studies coincided with Le Corbusier’s visit to Bogota, where he had been invited to develop an urban master plan. In 1948, Salmona’s father decided to send his children to France in light of the increasing political unrest in Colombia. Salmona began working for the architect at the atelier de la rue de Sèvres 35, where he would stay for the next ten years. Under Le Corbusier, he would further develop his passion for drawing, thereby coming in direct contact with the pragmatic aspects of architecture though his work in projects such as the Jaoul and the Rob et Roq houses and in the projects for Chandigarh. At this same time, however, he began attending the lectures given by the art historian Pierre Francastel at La Sorbonne and developing a strong friendship with him. Francastel’s social concerns and humanistic views deeply influenced Salmona’s attitudes toward architecture and led him in particular to develop a sense for an architecture in tune with the Latin American reality and in opposition to both the precepts imparted by Le Corbusier and those emerging from the International Style. From the onset, Salmona’s preoccupations with craftsmanship infused his work with the tectonic aspects of architecture and a concern for its experiential qualities. His understanding of history, his intimate relation with the Colombian landscape, and his affinity for the use of brick (Bogota’s local material par excellence) and concrete (with which he had worked extensively while at Le Corbusier’s atelier) became his trademarks. Three significant projects serve as a watershed in the career of the architect: the Torres del Parque residential complex (1967) in Bogota, the President’s House for Illustrious Guests (1981) in Cartagena, and the National Archives of Colombia (1992) in Bogota. Las Torres del Parque is without doubt one of the most significant housing projects of its kind, built in the Americas at the precise moment at which the International Style precepts were being questioned. The project consists of three brick towers built on a steep plot at the northern edge of the Parque de la Independencia (Independence Park) at the beginning of the Monserrate foothills. Las Torres del Parque was designed to house some 1,500 dwellers in 300 units. An architecture aligned neither to the vanishing ideals of the International Style nor to the emerging and multifaceted postmodern trends of the 1960s that replaced them, Las Torres is uncompromisingly fresh and vigorous, and it expresses a profound sympathy for a sense of urbanity, evocative of memorable places. In this project, Salmona also introduced a major choreography of urban places in which plant materials play a major role, giving a precise character to the outdoor zones of the project and integrating it with the adjacent park. Salmona’s President’s House for Illustrious Guests in Cartagena is a careful intervention in the topography. While respecting and enhancing the silhouette of neighboring El Manzanillo fort, it creates a new landscape on what previously was a barren site occupied by ruins. To accomplish this, Salmona used simple pragmatic principles derived from the Spanish-Moorish tradition as well as from pre-Hispanic sources. The President’s House is a compound formed of seven courtyards. Quarters for the president, his guests, and accompanying personnel have been carefully arranged around these courtyards. Additional facilities include a living room, a dining room, meeting rooms, a library, and service areas. Throughout the house, the materials used in its construction are consistent: brick, tile, coral stone, concrete, and hardwood. Rooms vary in proportion according to their function, yet they maintain a continuous unity. Differentiation is evident everywhere, carried out with extreme subtlety. The President’s House speaks clearly of solemnity and becomes a lesson in the restrained use of materials and forms. In the General Archives of Colombia, site, history, and distance become integral elements of Salmona’s form-making process. It is not accidental that Salmona, although alluding to the traditions of Colonial architecture in Colombia, reintroduces two important concepts evident in pre-Columbian buildings and poetry: the roof ambulation and the skewed access to precincts along diagonal lines. It is possible to experience both wandering and wondering on the Archives’ roof, which has become the ludic area of the building occupied by a garden and areas adjacent to the cafeteria. Pedestrians on the roof can view and seize the entire surrounding urban panorama modulated by the distant landscape while observing the comings and goings of users traversing the building’s great central cylindrical void. The central space of the Archives is undoubtedly a significant addition to the public spaces of Bogota. Acting as a sounding box that gathers the echoes, the light, and some of the landmarks of the city, it is, in every sense, a memorable place.

RICARDO L.CASTRO

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.3. Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005.  

1929 Born in Paris, 28 April;

1948-49 Studied at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá;

1949-57 Apprentice to Le Corbusier, Paris;

1949-57 Attended the École des Hautes Études Sociales, Sorbonne, Paris;

1953-54 Studied at Metiers Art School, Paris;

1958 Returned to Colombia; began architectural practice in Bogotá and started teaching at the Universidad de los Andes;

1963 Granted a professional degree by the Universidad de los Andes;

October 3, 2007 Died in Bogotá, Colombia.

Selected Publications

“Reflections upon Latin American Architecture,” in Architecture and Body, edited by Scott Marble et al., 1988

“Casa para la memoria,” Revista de la Asociación Latinoamericana 13 (1993)

“La Casa Cartagenera: ensueño y poesía,” Restauración 5 (1993)

Further Reading

Full details of Salmona’s biography appear in Téllez, which also includes illustrated critical analyses of the most significant buildings prior to 1991. Sixteen significant projects up to 1997 are discussed and illustrated in Castro.

Arango, Silvia, Historia de la arquitectura en Colombia, Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1990

Castro, Ricardo L., “The Work of Rogelio Salmona: The President’s Guest House in Cartagena, Colombia,” in Critical Regionalism: The Pomona Meeting Proceedings, edited by Spyro Amourgis, Pomona: California State Polytechnic University, 1991

Castro, Ricardo L., “Thoughts at the Edge of Architecture: Solitude and the Marvelous-Real,” ARQ Architecture Quebec 67 (June 1992)

Castro, Ricardo L., “Architectural Criticism in the Chimeric Realm,” Design Book Review 32/33 (1994)

Castro, Ricardo L., “Wet Architecture: Rogelio Salmona’s Quimbaya Gold Museum,” The Fifth Column 9, no. 2 (1996)

Castro, Ricardo L., Rogelio Salmona, Bogotá, Colombia: Villegas Editores, 1998

Castro, Ricardo L., “Site Resonance and Sense of Distances: Rogelio Salmona’s Nueva Santa Fe Community Centre in Bogotá,” The Fifth Column 10, no. 2–3 (1998)

Fonseca, Alberto and Alberto Saldarriaga, Aspectos de la arquitectura contemporánea en Colombia, Medellín: Editorial Colina, 1977

Gutiérrez, Ramón, “La persistencia y el cambio: Casa de Huéspedes Ilustres, Cartagena de Indias,” A and V 48 (1994)
“Rogelio Salmona, Colombia,” Zodiac 8 (1992)

Salmona, Rogelio and Germán Téllez, “The House of Illustrious Guests, Colombia, Cartagena de Indias,” A+U 4, no. 331 (1998)

Téllez, Germán, Rogelio Salmona: arquitectura y poética del lugar, Bogotá, Colombia: Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad de los Andes, 1991

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