Located on the west side of Bogota, Columbia, Ciudadela Colsubsidio is one of the most unique architectural endeavors in the country. It is a residential project covering an area of 130 hectares and able to house 14,000 buildings.
The start of the construction of Ciudadela Colsubsidio was because of a law the Columbian government passed in 1982. According to the law, every social security organization in the country was required to provide homes for their members.
The Colsubsidio family fund was one of these organizations. They hired German Semper, a famous Columbian native architect, to design the project. Semper began working in 1983 and 3 years later the project was completed.
If one were to look at the layout of the project and say that this seems like it came out of a Le Corbusier drawing one would not be wrong. Semper worked with Le Corbusier for nearly a decade, undertaking different projects together. The French architect genius definitely affected Semper which is visible in his later works as well.
The true aim of Semper while designing Ciudadela Colsubsidio was to build a city within a city. He believed that free space affected social behaviors positively; therefore, he tried to give the inhabitants as much space as possible.
Moreover, Ciudadela Colsubsidio was one of the first projects in Columbia that valued pedestrians over vehicles. Nearly 35,000 residents live in the buildings although 40% of the total buildings belong to various businesses.
Although Semper cared about the uniqueness of the project, he also made sure that it was accessible to every Columbian. In the same project, single-family and multiple-family homes exist together so that people from every class and wealth can experience life in Ciudadela Colsubsidio.
Semper’s vision continued to flourish and develop in the following decades as well. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the project saw new developments and buildings. Churches, shops, schools, and parks enriched Ciudadela Colsubsidio, making it one of the best places in Columbia.
