National Capitol
Neoclassical seat of Congress built in quarried stone over seventy-eight years, on the site of the old viceroy's palace.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Bogotá's National Capitol starts on the ground it stands on, once the viceroy's palace, the Royal Audiencia court, and the colonial jail, before fire and a certain borrowed flowerpot changed what this corner meant. You'll hear how General Tomas Cipriano de Mosquera, an admirer of the British parliament, pushed for a stone legislature and hired Danish architect Thomas Reed to design it. Construction began in eighteen forty-eight and dragged through civil wars and seven different architects, long enough that bogotanos gave the unfinished shell its own nickname.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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