Urban landscape and morphology as operable material for the architectural project: the work of Bruno Violi in Bogotá

The relationship between architecture, topography, urban morphology and landscape is addressed and investigated through the critical analysis of four buildings designed by the Italian architect Bruno Violi (Milan, 1909 - Bogotá, 1971) in Bogotá between 1950 and 1962. The case studies have a different scale, functional program and location within the urban fabric of the Colombian capital: two private residences, the Shaio House (1950), located in a newly expanded residential area with a regular urban layout, and the Violi House on Carrera 2e (1953), sited on a sloping lot at the foot of the mountains, totally immersed in nature; the headquarters of the Volkswagen car company (1955), facing an important road axis; and the Quintana Building (1962), an office complex with a roof floor for residential use that dialogues with the consolidated fabric of the colonial historical city. Bruno Violi’s work describes how the interpretation of geographic and urban characters of the site is acknowledged as an operational condition and an active design device, capable of strongly binding the architecture to the place, contributing to define its form, compositional choices and identity, as well as a tool for analysing the urban context. The contribution builds on the results of the PhD thesis in Architectural and Urban Composition entitled ‘Modern Architecture in Colombia and European Contribution: opportunities for a cultural encounter. Critical analysis of the work of the Italian architect Bruno Violi in Bogotá’ (2018).