Mid-20th century Colombian vaults: a contemporary tradition

Abstract

Despite their extraordinary interest, Colombian vaults of the central third of the 20th century have been rarely studied. Some concrete vaulted shells of very specific buildings, such as the ones of the Cartagena baseball stadium, are well-known, but more inconspicuous vaults for the structures of smaller buildings remain undervalued -especially structures for single-family houses,which were then a laboratory for testing all types of variants of lightweight vaults, some of which would be used later in other major constructions. An important milestone in this type of construction is the Casa Pizano, a building that can be traced today due to a peculiar coincidence that made its vaults especially influential in the history of modern architecture: Le Corbusier rediscovered tile vaults in this Bogota house, and later used a similar technique in some buildings that would be very influential in turn. But local architects were at that time using not only tile vaults but also many other vaulted systems,from concrete shells to reinforced ceramics. This paper will highlight the most significant examples of small-scale vaulted structures built in the Colombia of the 1950s, and establish a possible narrative for these constructions. To achieve this, a basic taxonomy will be first drawn up; then three examples of representative buildings of the main constructive systems will be studied; and, finally, a brief analysis of the impact of these examples in the construction of vaulted buildings throughout Latin America will be attempted.