A Thesis on Rogelio Salmona\'s Torres del Parque Residential Complex

1. Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of Teotihuacan, Mexico City.
Photo: Claudio Vekstein

2. Architectural Clarity as a Basis of Clarification
A Thesis on Rogelio Salmona’s Torres del Parque Residential Complex
16 December 2004
Published Online, Spring 2005: http://lai.caed.asu.edu/delparque.htm
The children of the Universal Mother ascend from the earth, spiraling
towards the heavens...closer to rejoining the souls of their ancestors.
—
Pre-Columbian civilizations believed that to live closer to the heavens than
to the earth would bring them a “superior degree of existence.” Mountains
represented the sacred, were the possessor of a special power, immortal,
permanent and absolute. In the Andes, the Muisca could liberally expand their
spiritual realizations. Their pyramids were the residence of the deity and the
cultural and civic center of the city.
—
In examining Rogelio Salmona’s Torres del Parque Residential Complex, the connection
to the pre-Columbian temples that preceded them is accomplished through the
towers that reach for the sky and the souls of Columbia. He orchestrates a shift
in the hierarchical status by deconstructing the social order, placing the families
and the people living within the towers closer to the Heavens—in a superior
domain amongst the children of the Universal Mother. He creates an assembly
of unprecedented density and urban sequences in a revolutionary design for a
country with a political and culturally turbulent history. Formulated with the
same clarity and changes in scale as the pre-Columbian temples that influenced
him, the Towers are a seminal piece of Columbian architecture that combine
the geographical, environmental and social conditions of South America and
Salmona’s ideas and European influences through an orchestrated and purified
architectural stratification.
—
The Towers are a culmination of years of European influence on Salmona’s
education, values and architecture. There is nothing artificial when looking
at the towers. Absent of ornamentation, the texture and patina of the
Columbian brick connects the materiality of the buildings with the earth.
The structures dance with the sun, the forms spiral and ascend skyward to
facilitate construction. A closer examination of the buildings reveals a change
in the surface and scale. Orchestrated within these layers, his ideology becomes Neuen Vahr Apartments, Bremen, Germany
more evident as the construction, materiality and subsequent detailing of the Alvar Aalto, 1959-61
brick layers emphasize and choreograph subtle shifts, displacements, voids and
shadows; providing a purified relationship between Columbians, spirit, nature,
material and architecture.
—
The composition could have been an inflection of all of Salmona’s influences
and ideas and yet the expression was restrained and simplified through the
materiality. A clear understanding of the methodology of brick, its layering,

3. Torres del Parque Residential Complex, Bogotá, Columbia
Rogelio Salmona, 1964-70
patterns, forms and possible transformations is realized. Fracturing his
ideologies from Le Corbusier, whose body of work involved liberating the
ground and creating a building raised above the landscape—a mechanism of
living and a restricted public space that provokes rejection and separation—
the Towers become a part of the collective. The social stratosphere that was
once common in colonial civilization is deconstructed and composed with each
floor and layer of brick, constructed to represent a signification of impartiality.
Sequential spaces and vigorously massive volumes are formed; conceiving a
new panorama rivaling the pre-Columbian pyramids. Framing the mountains
and overshadowing the urban landscape that surrounds it, the Towers are
arranged as part of a social and cultural complex that interacts and flows with
the architecture and the landscape; inviting the adjoining neighborhood and
interrelating with the adjacent Independence Park and the Plaza de Toros.
—
Rogelio Salmona’s European influences are slowly revealed and defined through
the stratification of the Towers. The affect of the International Style and other
architects like Alvar Aalto is only apparent in the fan shaped plans and the
dissection of the programmatic provisions in the units. Although the rooms
have limited and residual spaces, each uniform residential component contains
a balcony that displaces the family to experience the panoramic landscape
and the views of the city and consists of two floors complete with a room
allocated for an office. The intended unification and non-hierarchical layering
of residential units presents a clarified conception of the family and the people
of Bogotá. The Torres del Parque is intended as a program for living with a clear
understanding for the necessity to provide a high-density solution in a city
where none previously existed.
—
Born in France, Salmona’s family relocated to Bogotá in 1933. It is important
to note that from the beginning, Salmona was raised in a non-traditional

4. environment. Having been removed from Catholic schools, he received a
European based education at the Lycée Français. At the time, his family
continued to live in neighborhoods built during the 1930’s, where eclectic or
crude examples of modern architecture were the prevalent mode of living.
During this period, like other Europeans in exodus, German professor
and architect Leopoldo Rother immigrated to South America. Under Rother,
Salmona was introduced to the theories of architecture, and more importantly,
that architecture was built on human themes—“a medium of civilization,” and
not merely an occupation nor a vocation. His European based education taught
him to speak French, fortuitous when Le Corbusier visited Bogotá in 1947.
Salmona was one of the privileged to accompany Le Corbusier, who would meet
and visit with the Salmona family.
—
From 1946-57, the bogotazo would spread throughout the region and La Violencia
would claim over 300,000 lives. In 1948, seeing the political situation in Columbia
unravel, Salmona’s father had his
family moved to France. His father,
through a letter, would ask Corb to
act as Rogelio’s guardian. Salmona
would study, work and live with Le
Corbusier for the next ten years. He
would work on the Marseille-Veyre,
Chandigarh and the Civic Center in
Bogotá. In the south of France, he
would learn the Islamic architecture
at the Alhambra and would begin his
study of the materiality of brick.
While in Europe, Salmona
maintained his roots to South
America. It was at the University
of Paris under Pierre Francastel
that altered his philosophy away
from the cultural disconnect of
Torres del Parque Residential Complex Model
the International Style towards a Machine/Laser-cut Basswood and CNC cut Redwood
Exhibited at Arizona State University
development of an architecture for
College of Design|School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Columbia. His interests and studies David Takeuchi, Spring 2005
in pre-Columbian civilizations
continued. He would realize his differences with Le Corbusier and would
return to Colombia in 1958.
—
Bogotá is located in an abundant upland basin 8,660 feet (2,640 m) above sea level
in the Cordillera Oriental of the Northern Andes Mountains. The city is located
on a sloping plain at the base of the Guadalupe and Monserrate mountains. It

5. is geographically isolated by the mountains and both the Pacific and Caribbean
Ocean, yet bordered by five South American countries. Its streets are laid out
on a grid pattern—a European layout with plazas—a marker of history and the
resultant of the Spanish conquest and occupation.
Since its independence from Spain in 1821, like other South American
countries, Columbia has experienced periods of political unrest and social
displacement and is currently responsible for much of the drug trafficking to
the United States. The population in Bogotá is currently over 7.7 million. Its
society has a history formed by a Colonial caste system that is dictated by the
“purity of the one’s blood”. The elitists controlled the government factions until
discontentment resulted in several movements and protests amongst the labor
parties. Urban and rural guerrilla activities surged.
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