Architecture and housing development in cartagena de indias during the colonial and republican period

BACKGROUND

Cartagena is the touristic Capital of Colombia; it is located in the Caribbean coast in the north part of South America. The present population is around 1.000.000 inhabitants, and is one of the cities in Colombia that has biggest rates of population grow.

The history of the city start with the Spanish discovery of America 500 hundred years ago, Since then it has multiplecharacters in its architecture and urban landscape, not only Spanish were in the city, as well African bring as slaves, native Indians and the mixed between the different races.

Due to the location of the city in the north part of the continent the city had a huge initial growth as Spanish port in the Americas, in fact the main important port in America were Cartagena and Veracruz in Mexico, throughthis city all the wealth of the southern part were transport to Europe.

To protect the city from pirates, many important building were developed, as castles, armories, monasteries, walls; which can be seen in the city and are well preserve, later after the Spanish conquerors colonial time, came a period of decadence due to the concentration of growth in the center of Colombia, the final periodof slavery, and the division and partition of America in different countries made the port lost its importance.

In the beginning of the republic factors as illnesses, and poverty were the rule, but with the beginning of the 20 century, many changes came, like improvement of sanitary conditions, increasing of the exports, and change in the politics of the state that made this city gain part ofthis past glory. In the present is the main touristic city of Colombia, and is catalogued as the most preserve old city in the Americas. This make that the city is compromised with the preservation of its old quarter, and try to integrated its development to the urban planning of the whole city, taking in count different considerations like architecture style and building function.

Cartagena isas well and important industrial and petrochemical hub for the country, but is still one of the poorest areas of the country and the inequity between the population is almost like is possible to find in some countries in Africa.

TABLE OF CONTENT

BACKGROUND 2
TABLE OF CONTENT 3
TABLE OF FIGURES 4
1. INTRODUCTION 5
2. GOGRAPHIC AND NATURAL CONDITIONS OF CARTAGENA 6
2.1 Location 62.2 Temperature 8

2.3 Precipitation 9

2.4 Relative Humidity 10

2.5 Ecosystem classification 10

2.6 Winds 11

2.7 Influence of natural conditions in Architecture and Housing during the colonial time 11

3. COLONIAL PERIOD 12
3.1 Introduction 12

3.2 History of the colonial architecture 13

3.3 Ordinances of philipe 2, King of Spain in the 16th century 15

3.4Planning of the colonial city 16

4. REPUBLICAN ARCHITECTURE 19
4.1 Why is call republican architecture? 19

4.2 Historic aspects of the republican architecture 19

4.3 Cartagena in the Republican period 21

4.4 Republican architecture in the center of the city 23

5. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 26
6. REFERENCES 27

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Local Cartagena Map withfortifications, 1780 6

Figure 2 Location of Cartagena respect to the World, 1998 7

Figure 3 Temperature differences according to height and how they distribute in Colombia, 2005 8

Figure 4: Precipitation distribution in Colombia, 2007 9

Figure 5: Ecosystems distribution in Cartagena, 2006 10

Figure 6: Puerto de Cartagena de Indias, mapa colonial (1550) 12

Figure 7: San FelipeCastle, Cartagena de Indies, built in 1776. 13

Figure 8: Andalucía architecture influences in Cartagena de Indias colonial housing, (1679) 14

Figure 9: Santo Domingo Monastery, simple and decorative restraint. (1646) 16

Figure 10: San Pedro Claver Church (1746) and Santa Clara Monastery (1647) in Cartagena 17

Figure 11: Fort battery san José (1648) Fort battery san Sebastian (1648) 17...