Recomposición de formas urbanas y culturales en las periferias de Bogotá

As a consequence of the rapid urbanization of Bogotá during the 20th century, the current mega city includes six ancient villages in its urban morphology. These settlements were founded, like the historical center of Bogota, in colonial times, but their history dates back to pre-Hispanic times. In this article, research is spatially delimited to two of the six pre-Hispanic settlements that were converted into Indian villages and later to districts of the metropolis. Until the 1940s, the villages stood out for their concise urban design with the central squares as rural nodes. Now connected to Bogotá by a continuous urban fabric made up of expansions of different patterns, the central squares and surrounding blocks can still be identified easily. The cartographic reconstruction of these places in a series of maps from the 1940s and 1980s together with iterative research processes, combining methods and knowledge from different disciplines (participatory work, local literature among others), have revealed in the contemporary patterns historical structures such as the indigenous resguardos linked to the Indian villages. The recent formation of Muisca Indigenous Councils makes visible a culture that many believed to have disappeared. The comparison of historical maps and the location of native inhabitants shows a continuity of the Muisca presence within the contemporary metropolis. Urban forms and social dynamics have transformed and conditioned each other during this process that can be read to this day. From this reading, conclusions can be drawn about the need to rethink the concept of heritage and propose a sustainable and resilient future urbanism based on autochthonous principles.