Letter to my Colombian Friends

Abstract

Fernando Lara's essay in the format of a letter highlights the achievements of Colombian architecture in the past decades, with a focus of institutional building. The author departs from decolonial theory to argue that we need to move beyond the Eurocentrism that is still prevalent in our discipline. One possible route to decolonize our architectural conversation comes from the work of Colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar. Despite layers of colonization that are inherent to the modernization processes, Colombian institutional design is something that we should discuss as a success case in our continent.

Keywords

• contemporary colombian arquitecture
• modernization
• colonization
• institutional framework
• urban design