Casa de la Memoria Museum / Juan David Botero

Architects: Juan David Botero
Location: Medellín, Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia
Architect Designs Coordinator: Juan David Botero
Architects Task Force: Maria Fernanda Vasco O, Carla Cristina Gil, Jorge Adrian Gaviria, Catalina Jaramillo, Daniel Santiago Herrera, Elías José Gomez, Víctor Hugo Rodriguez, Alejandro Naranjo, Oscar Santana
Advisory Architect Design: Carlos Mario Rodriguez
Area: 21000.0 m2
Year: 2011
Photography: Isaac Ramírez Marín

Promoter: Alcaldía de Medellín- Obras Publicas
Management: Empresa de Desarrollo Urbano (EDU) , Gerencia Auxiliar de Proyectos urbanos integrales- PUI Centoriental
Engineers: Sergio Alberto Cuervo (Ing. Civil), Luz Tatiana Medina (Ing. Civil), Lady Orjuela (Ing. Forestal)
Structural Engineer: Gabriel Gutiérrez Ingenieros, Jaider Sepulveda
Lighting Advisor: Ligth Cube
Bioclimatic Advisor: PVG Arquitectos
Soil Study: Suelo y Ambiente
Contractors: Consorcio Bicentenario 2010

From the architect. In commemoration of Colombia’s 200 years of independence, rises a proposal to develop an urban project with aims to generate a social and environmental impact in a city’s sector which through the years has been deteriorating by housing invasion and the constant misuse of natural resources.

The project makes part of a master plan called Central-PUI, and it is located at Boston’s neighborhood, in the 10^th district of Medellín, Colombia; between the 39^thtill 36^th Carrera and the 54^th till 51^st street. The design criteria for this project, responds to the need to restore a historical and natural element such as the Santa Elena Stream, an important water source for the collective memory of the inhabitants of the city. Along this stream the first settlements where originated, which later led to the development of the city as known today. This element intends to be the main and guiding axis of the project by the recovery of its historical meaning.

The Project intervention develops 34,620 m2 of new public space, through which it seeks a physical and environmental recovery of the Santa Elena Stream. This will be done by a considerable amount of native flora planting, landscape design, strengthening of the sector as a new area of recreation with leisure facilities, including an open theater with natural grass and an interactive digital display of water.

As said before, this project will trigger the environmental and spatial recovery of the stream, with the streams borders as the structure and primary target for public space generation.

Within this proposal, a cultural facility of 3,619 m2 called “Museo Casa de la Memoria” is included, and seeks to assign a special place for the remembrance of victims of the violent conflict in Colombia and all around the world, promoting in its enclosures, spaces to recreate and disseminate throughout exhibits, historical events, with the aim of transforming violent acts into social learning.

The museum is another good excuse to find in this city a place where people meet to review our history and be able to assimilate the transition from the darkness of the death that swept our streets for decades, into the light of hope of living in a city less violent and with more public spaces for social interaction.

Starting form this premise, the building is like a tunnel, looking to revive a descending journey, pretending with this, to recreate sensations of the so called transition from darkness to light, supported by itinerant or permanent educational scripts, which will tell stories of our conflict that has been present for over 40 years.