Letters to the Mayor: Bogotá

October 25th – December 19th, 2015

CAMPO Cultural Center

 

#letterstothemayor     #letterstothemayorbogota     @storefrontnyc

 

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.” CAMPO

 

Letters to the Mayor: Bogotá invited the following architects to write to Mayor of Bogotá:

 

Participants

Laura Acevedo, altiplano, Mies van der Beuys, Santiago Buendía, Nicolás Consuegra, Estudio BAU, Rafael Hortua, Adriana Martínez, Catalina Mendoza, Oficina Informal, Juan Ortiz, OUT Taller de Arquitectura, Mónica Paez, Santiago Pradilla, Manel Quintana, Patricio Ramírez, María Camila Sanjinés, Sebastian Serna, Enrique Silva, José Alfredo Suárez, Richard Tamayo, Ricardo Toledo, Viviana B. Troya, Andrés Felipe Uribe, Simón Uribe, Guillermo Vanegas

 

 

PROJECT TEAM

 

Local Curators

CAMPO: Carlos Balen, altiplano (Felipe Guerra), Monumental (Alejandro Piñol, Germán Ramírez), Juliana Sánchez and Alejandra Sarria.

 

Mayoral Desk / Architect’s Table Design

The Mayoral/Architect’s Desk is designed by Pablo Gómez Uribe (Colombia, 1975).

 

Wallpaper Design

The wallpaper is designed by Paulo Licona (Colombia, 1997) an artists that lives and works in Bogotá.

 

 

ABOUT LETTERS TO THE MAYOR

 

Letters to the Mayor is an itinerant exhibition that displays real letters written by architects to their city mayors. Initiated by Storefront for Art and Architecture in 2014, the project has traveled to more than 15 cities across the globe, including Bogota, Mexico City, Athens, Panama City, Taipei, Mariupol, Madrid, Lisbon, and Buenos Aires, among others. See here for a list of iterations.  

 

Letters to the Mayor invites 100 architects in each city to write a letter to their mayor as a means of bringing innovative ideas and visions of the city closer to the decision-makers, and vice versa.

 

Throughout history, architects have engaged with this responsibility and the structures of economic, political, and cultural power in different ways and with varying degrees of success. With the rise of globalization and the homogenization of the contemporary city, the role of the architect in the political arena has often been relegated to answering questions that others have asked. 

 

Letters to the Mayor questions this dynamic, and invites local and global architects to deliver their thoughts directly to the desks of elected officials, and simultaneously into the public consciousness.

 

 

SUPPORT

 

Letters to the Mayor is part of Storefront for Art and Architecture’s initiative Architecture Conflicts, a project with the purpose of identifying pressing issues, ongoing conflicts, and design solutions in relation to the most important urban problems today. Architecture Conflicts is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

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