I’m thrilled to share the exciting news that my article titled ‘From Betjeman to Bogota’ has been published in the latest issue of The Twentieth Century Society magazine. The article covers some of the research I did on English-style houses built in the 1940s in Bogota, Colombia, for my dissertation submitted for the degree of MSt in Building History at the University of Cambridge in 2020.
It’s great to know that all my effort trying to finish my dissertation while working full time, looking after my family, AND dealing with COVID lockdown at the time has some public interest!
It all started from wanting to know more about my maternal grandfather, whom I never met, as he died the year before I was born.
His name was Luis Buitrago Roa, a civil engineer who travelled in 1930 to Berlin to study at the university there and returned to Colombia in 1936 to practice and teach at the National University.
He was directly involved in the construction of many of these so-called English-style houses in Bogota.
I'm the only one in the family who followed his steps by becoming an architect. I wish I had met him to hear amazing stories of his time.
Here is the full article in PDF in case you struggle to read the small print below.
Below are some of the many photos from my research that did not make it to the article for space reasons, which show how well-crafted the houses are while embracing new technologies developing at the time in the country.
