The house

Granada Hostel sits in the heart of Bogotá’s historic centre, in the residential area that once bordered the institutional core of the capital during the republican era. Colonial, republican and modernist buildings stand side by side here — buildings that have shaped the urban history of the city since its foundation, through the consolidation of colonial public spaces of every scale (Plaza de Bolívar, the Chorro de Quevedo, Parque Santander), bringing together religious architecture (the Catedral Primada, the first churches and convents of the Spanish religious orders) and the civil buildings of the republic raised in the 19th century.

The historic centre reflects the successive conflicts Colombian society has lived through, from the colony to the beginning of the armed conflict that was finally settled by the recent peace agreements.

Walking through the centre, you can pick out the modern blocks rebuilt after the “Bogotazo”, the uprising that followed the assassination of the liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán.

The building Granada Hostel occupies today dates from 1935 and belongs to a pre-modernist style typical of Colombian architecture, built once concrete had entered domestic construction. You can still read the original plan: living spaces laid out around courtyards in the typical republican arrangement, resolved with concrete columns.