Bogotá 1900

This book reproduces the complete album of photographs of Bogotá that, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the great photographer Henri Duperly took, in his leisure time and in the exercise of personal photography.Duperly's real job was photographing people in his studio and using those photographs on business cards of the day.

In 1894, after a journey that left his native Jamaica and passed through Panama, Barranquilla, Ocaña and part of Boyacá, Óscar Duperly and his son Henri established the English Photography HL Duperly & Son in Bogotá.

From this experience with the camera, in front of a country that timidly entered the 20th century, this book is born that reveals in its images the architecture and daily life of Bogotá.The shots range from the surprising Wagner crossing the Tequendama Falls on a tightrope in 1895, to the shots of the National Capitol in full construction or the commercial streets of the capital at that time.

Duperly records the important events of the turn of the century, such as the reception of General Rafael Reyes, hero of the 1895 war, or the burning of the Arrubla Galleries (the place where the Mayor's Office currently operates) in 1900. He walks the streets of commerce elegant as Florián or Avenida de la República, the alamedas near the central cemetery and makes a detailed panoramic study of the heart of the small but already elegant city: the Plaza de Bolívar.

This is a historical, architectural and urban document but, above all, an endearing and privileged look at a city of barely one hundred thousand inhabitants, the nucleus of today's mega-city, which opens up to the 21st century in splendor.