Medellin 2010

In October 2010 I was invited to participate in an excursion of the University of the Netherlands Antilles,  organized by Sofia Saavedra Bruno and Lyongo Juliana, sponsored by ‘Stichting Kultura”.  With 45 participants (students and alumni of the technical faculty of the UNA, 5 of their teachers, 5 architects, 6 civil servants and 3 artists) we went to the VII Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitecturea y Urbanismo in Medellin, Colombia. In the mornings we attended lectures and discussions in the Plaza Mayor Congress Centre. In the afternoons we made excursions to examples of Medellins ‘Urbanismo Social’; community buildings like schools and free libraries of very high quality architecture in low social areas of the city. It was as interesting to see the architectural projects as it was to walk around in those barios. My one word impression  of Medellin is FULL. Full of (very friendly) people, textures and colors! Not strange if you know how densely populated the city is. It has 5785  people per km2, compared to 294 in Curacao and 4751 in Amsterdam. With so many people in this group photographing the architectural projects we visited, I focussed mainly on the city.