The Charm of Bogotá

Decades of years before anyone thought of publishing it, it was done by artisans who did not even remember their name, by ironsmiths who interposed their doors and windows between the street and domestic life, by gardeners who planted trees and pots of flowers, the carvers who designed the fountains and stones, the jewelers who set precious stones in impossible objects, the glass workers who made the great lamps and chandeliers, the weavers who made baskets or made rugs, the urban planners who laid the first streets, lying on the slopes of the hills and narrow as possible, to protect the people from the cold of the wasteland and the fear of ghosts. Because this is the book of public space. Large mansions and solemn interiors have no place here.

This is everyone's city, where we walk, where we are surprised by the twilights and the dawns. And although the landscape appears a little groomed (after all, it is a space inhabited by man), what is found here is, above all, a representation of the beings who have made the terrestrial city as an ideal of stone, lime and iron, like an antithesis of the dreamed city between the blue sky and the savanna. That is why this is the book of half-truth. With him, those of us who were committed to his adventure sought to find the charm of Bogotá before its miseries and difficulties. We do not deny that they exist and, what's more, they are so evident that we do not believe it is necessary to remember them. But what is less obvious, what is hidden under the veil of prudence, is precisely what we highlight here.