Customized co-design
The Fábrica de Cultura is the most spectacular result of the Columbia Urban Transformation Project, initiated by ETH Zurich, financed with third-party funds, and realized with Colombian partners. Since 2014, a team led by Hubert Klumpner, ETH professor of architecture and urban planning and founder of urbanthinktank_next, has taught classes at Colombian universities on implementing sustainable urban development concepts with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Barranquilla's mayor and Manuel Moreno, the dean of Universidad del Norte, were very open to the idea of co-design as a form of development cooperation. Until now, the metropolis at the mouth of the Rio Magdalena, a primaeval forest river that flows into the Caribbean Sea, had yet to offer any architectural landmarks. Its greatest cultural asset is its carnival, one of the largest in the world, which was named a Unesco World Heritage event in 2003.
Culture factory, not museum
The Swiss-Colombian university team took the idea of a carnival museum proposed by the city and developed it into a more vibrant concept. "We didn't think that showing old costumes in a museum was visionary enough. Barranquilla thrives on thousands of highly skilled artisans who work on the carnival parades but also in the high-tech shipyards. We devised the project as a centre where this expertise, otherwise scattered throughout the city, can converge and be visible," explained Hubert Klumpner. From the start, planning involved the Escuela Distrital de Artes y Traditiones Populares (District School of Arts and Popular Traditions, EDA), the arts and crafts school that now operates the building. A suitable site was found in an old Colombia Tobacco factory complex. An angular production hall for cigars is now used for training workshops. "What used to be a tobacco factory is now a culture factory."
Open House
The building is open in its design - with both natural ventilation and public accessibility. Due to the tropical climate, many acting, music, painting, and sculpture spaces are on open-air platforms; metal screens protect against wind and rain. A few rooms, like the auditorium and spaces for paper production and IT, are enclosed and air-conditioned. The robust, seven-floor reinforced concrete skeleton is designed to withstand the area's frequent earthquakes. A new public plaza between the old and new buildings connects to the city's pedestrian network through landscaped walkways. A colourful carpet of handmade cement tiles covers the plaza and the barrel-shaped ceiling of the sunken auditorium, extending into the building over the walls up to the roof terrace. A bright red sculptural staircase invites people to explore the building; the elevator is mainly used to transport loads. Not only is the new building highly functional, but also designed to be an open stage for the city.
The school has quickly become a public centre for skills and knowledge transfer. Like the carnival itself, it unites all strata of the population. Fábrica de Cultura might also become a pop culture landmark - as a location for video clips by Barranquilla's most famous daughter, the music and dance icon Shakira.
