Value or demolish modern heritage: the case of ESSO Colombian S.A. building in Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract

There is much talk about the urgency of safeguarding the city's heritage, while Planes de Renovación Parcial are submited for approval by the Secretaría de Planeación Distrital, which sometimes contradict this urgency which undobutedly should lead to the respective issuing of the declaration as Bien de Interés Cultural BIC. This is the case of the Plan Parcial de Renovación Urbana CAR-Universidad Libre, which appears marked with Viability on the website of the Secretaría distrital de Planeación which contains, within its intervention area, two essential buildings for the architectural memory of Bogotá. One of them, Pan American (Teusacá Building), fortunately already has a BIC declaration. The other, the Esso Colombiana Building, hasn't obtained it yet. This text refers to and particularizes this building from a review in context, originated in an investigative exercise carried out by the author about Ignacio Martínez Cárdenas and his professional practice. The research is developed from the following question: ¿What is the argument to evade that responsibility that we have to protect as connoisseurs of what this building means, implies and represents, in that location and with that evident formal, aesthetic, conceptual and material statement, still manifests today in this particular building?