Founded in 1948 at the northern edge of Bogotá’s colonial center, the Universidad de los Andes came into existence at an inflection point in the history of Colombia and its capital. In April of that year, the assassination of liberal politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán sparked protests and a subsequent government crackdown that brought the city to its knees. The following year, Le Corbusier submitted a master plan for the city’s explosive growth—a plan that, had it been realized, would have obliterated swaths of what are now protected historic districts. When the institution opened in November of 1948, in a former factory and women’s prison, as Colombia’s first private, secular institution of higher education, it did so with the express goal of building a new and better nation.
With a current enrollment of roughly 14,000 students, the Universidad de los Andes has remained committed to its central location, growing up the mountain slopes as a dense assemblage of freestanding volumes connected by gardens and winding footpaths. Stacked like a citadel and closely guarded by private security, the campus, for all its beauty, has long contradicted the university’s stated mission to “impart to its students [a sense of] social and civic responsibility as well as commitment to their surroundings.”
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