Famous Landmarks in Bogotá
A colonial capital rebuilt in Neoclassical stone around a single central plaza.
Bogotá's oldest surviving landmarks cluster tightly around Plaza de Bolívar and the streets just south of it, in what began as the colonial seat of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. Despite spanning four centuries — from a sixteenth-century mansion to a legislature finished in 1926 — nearly all wear the same Neoclassical dress, imposed onto older colonial fabric as the new republic reached for a shared civic style after independence. The result is a compact core where a colonial-era palace, a cathedral rebuilt in the early nineteenth century and a slow-built capitol face one another across a few short blocks, their outward uniformity masking very different construction histories underneath.
Primatial Cathedral of Bogotá
1807–1823 · Domingo de Petrés
Its Neoclassical facade lines one side of Plaza de Bolívar, the same square the National Capitol faces.
Domingo de Petrés designed this Neoclassical cathedral, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception and Saint Peter, on Plaza de Bolívar. Built between 1807 and 1823, it replaced a line of earlier churches on the same ground and now serves as the seat of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Bogotá, whose see holds the honorary title Primate of Colombia, granted by Pope Leo XIII in 1902. It is also the seat of the cathedral's Cabildo metropolitano.
- It is the fourth church built on this exact site, following three earlier ones.
- A 1975 government decree declared the building a national monument.
Photo: Felipe Restrpo Acosta (CC BY-SA 4.0)
National Capitol of Colombia
1848–1926 · Thomas Reed
Its long Neoclassical mass anchors one side of Plaza de Bolívar, opposite the cathedral, and houses both chambers of the national legislature.
Thomas Reed designed this Neoclassical seat of the Congress of Colombia, often called simply the Capitolio Nacional, on Plaza de Bolívar in central Bogotá. Construction began in 1848 and was not finished until 1926, after decades of interrupted work that outlasted the architect. The completed building houses both houses of Congress and has since been recognised as a national monument.
- Thomas Reed, who designed the building, died in 1878, nearly half a century before it was finished.
Photo: user:Kinori (Public domain)
Palacio de San Carlos
1580
A Neoclassical facade fronts this sixteenth-century mansion at the corner of Calle 10 and Carrera 5.
Originally a sixteenth-century structure that later housed the Colegio Seminario de San Bartolomé, this mansion stands at the corner of Calle 10 and Carrera 5 and carries a Neoclassical style. Over the centuries it has been the site of various political, social and academic events. Since December 1993 it has served as the seat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Photo: Felipe Restrepo Acosta (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Plaza de Bolívar
1538
A statue at the centre of the square, sculpted in 1846 by Pietro Tenerani, is ringed by grand nineteenth- and twentieth-century facades on all four sides, including a cathedral, a legislative palace and a courthouse rebuilt after a 1985 siege.
This square has served as the historic centre of the city since its founding in 1538, when it was known as the Plaza Mayor and later the Plaza de la Constitución. A pillory once stood here for public punishments, and colonial-era markets, staged performances and bullfights were held on the ground into the seventeenth century. Its current name was adopted after a statue of Simón Bolívar, sculpted in 1846 by Pietro Tenerani, was installed as the city's first public monument. The square remains bordered by a cathedral, a legislative palace and a courthouse, and still hosts large public gatherings.
- Studies published in 2011 and 2017 traced Muisca solar alignments framed by the square's north-eastern corner, with the sun rising over one nearby hill at the June solstice and another at the December solstice.
- A pillory known as La Picota stood on the square for public punishments until it was replaced by a water fountain in 1583.
- The Palace of Justice on the square's north side has been rebuilt twice, after a 1948 fire and again after a 1985 siege that destroyed the previous building.
Photo: M M from Switzerland (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Teatro de Cristóbal Colón
1885–1892 · Pietro Cantini
Cornices divide its stone facade, cut in the Tuscan Doric order, into three horizontal sections; inside, tiered boxes and a gallery wrap a horseshoe-shaped hall laid out on the model of the Palais Garnier in Paris.
Pietro Cantini designed this Neoclassical theatre on the site of two earlier venues, the Coliseo Ramírez and the Teatro Maldonado. Construction began in 1885, and the building opened in 1892 with a performance of Verdi's Ernani; Swiss sculptor Luigi Ramelli handled the ornamentation. The horseshoe-shaped hall seats 785 people across stalls, boxes and a gallery. Declared a national monument in 1975, the building underwent renovations that decade and again between 2009 and 2010, and its main hall hosted the 2016 signing of the peace agreement that ended the Colombian armed conflict.
- Its stage curtain, painted in Florence by Annibale Gatti and hung in 1891, originally depicted farmers alongside opera characters until President Rafael Núñez asked for the farmers to be replaced with more decorative figures.
- A 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla group was signed in the building, ending decades of armed conflict.
- A 2007 newspaper poll ranked the building seventh among the seven wonders of Colombia.
Photo: Racso (Oscar Fernando Gómez) (CC BY-SA 3.0)
History
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founded the city on 6 August 1538, after a campaign into the Andes that conquered the Muisca, and it became capital of the New Kingdom of Granada. Renamed Santafé, it seated the Royal Audiencia from 1550 and, after 1717, governed the entire Viceroyalty of New Granada. Independence came after the Battle of Boyacá on 7 August 1819, and Simón Bolívar renamed the city Bogotá to honour the Muisca. The mansion later called the Palacio de San Carlos already stood from the 1500s; the cathedral was rebuilt in Neoclassical form between 1807 and 1823; and the Capitol, meant to house the new republic's Congress, took from 1848 to 1926 to complete.