Fundación Rogelio Salmona: The Latest Architecture and News

From projects, ideas, drawings, and sketches to photographs, models, material samples, and other documentation, these records embody years and memories of professional work responding to different needs, contexts, and purposes. Understanding that the architectural archive can serve as an effective method to inform and expand our understanding of collective intelligence, several foundations and architectural archives today take on multiple functions, extending their boundaries toward new horizons. Beyond preserving legacies and presenting them, they demonstrate the importance of promoting forward-looking cultural, social, and educational programs that engage younger generations in contemporary issues.

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On October 24, 2024, the Rogelio Salmona Latin American Architecture Prize award ceremony took place, honoring works that have significantly created meaningful, open, and collective spaces for the public in the region. During the event, held at the Virgilio Barco Public Library auditorium in Bogotá, Colombia, the winners of this prestigious award were announced. This year marked the fourth cycle, titled "Open Spaces/Collective Spaces," with participation from 47 projects.

The jury, composed of international figures such as Sol Camacho (Brazil-Mexico), Nicolás Campodonico (Argentina), Carlos Campuzano (Colombia), and Mauricio Rocha (Mexico), first shortlisted 26 selected works, from which two were awarded the first prize in the Latin America and Colombia categories.

The building of the General Archive of the Nation, designated as a national cultural interest asset by a court ruling in October 2007, reflects the modern archival philosophy and, combined with its collection of historical documents, performs a "miracle" of communicating memory through architecture.

It is hard to achieve a poetic aesthetic when designing archives because they are essentially warehouses, enclosed storage structures, with no sunlight, water, wind, or even dust. In this sense, an archive building is anti-architecture! Even caves need light for us to fully grasp their spatiality. These major limitations could only be overcome through the imagination of a great architect, and above all, through the essential and intrinsic qualities of architecture.

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