Templete del Libertador – Bogotá

By The Colombian Way

A well known Bogotá landmark with a curious history of changes and movement.

History of Templete del Libertador

When walking around a capital city in The Americas, it’s not unusual to see a monument to the person that liberated the country and gave it its independence, that freed the people from colonial rule.

When passing Bogotá’s Templete del Libertador in Parque de los Periodistas, you could being forgiven for not thinking twice about this landmark. It’s a humble masonry structure with a bronze statue of Simón Bolívar, colloquially known as El Libertador, the Venezuelan political and military leader that freed the Colombian people from the rule of the Spanish conquistadores.

In Colombia, sometimes things have a bafflingly convoluted and complex history. You might be surprised to learn that this monument, and also the statue within, have a flighty and capricious history.

Templete del Libertador was originally built between 1882 and 1886 by Italian architect Pietro Cantini. It drew inspiration from Rome’s Templo de Vesta. But it was not built in its present location, it was built 13 blocks north in Parque Centenario. Inaugurated in 1883, the park commemorated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Bolívar.

Upon its inauguration to celebrate the centennial of the birth of Bolívar, the monument’s statue of Bolívar begins to establish its own mystery. The original statue by French sculptor Antoine Desprey was only exhibited for one day before being sent to Parque Próspero Pinzón in Tunja, 140km to the north of the capital. The original statue then relocated once again to Plaza Mayor, also in Tunja. There it remained until it was replaced by a new statue of Bolívar on a horse. Desprey’s statue was relocated to nearby Puente de Boyacá. You can visit Desprey’s original statue on the way to Villa de Leyva.

Templete del Libertador, a monument supposedly built in honour of Simón Bolívar spent the next 43 years without a statue of Bolívar. In 1926 Colombian artist Ricardo Acevedo was commissioned to replace the statue of Bolívar and install it once again on the monument’s pedestal.

The photograph below shows the original location of Templete del Libertador in Parque Centenario, along with Acevedo’s statue of Bolívar. The park was located in Avenida Carrera Séptima at Calle 26. The Cerros Occidentales and Santuario de Monserrate are visible in the background.

The 1950’s were a turbulent time in Colombia’s history, La Violencia, a 10 year period of civil unrest following El Bogotazo caused mass displacement from the provinces to the capital. In just a few short years Bogotá’s population grew from 500,000 to 2 million people, many of whom were displaced by violence in other parts of Colombia.

During the post-Bogotazo years, Colombia was increasingly shunning the urban policies of European cities and pursuing the automobile-focussed policies of the USA. For these two reasons, there were far more people, and they were travelling by car, by the mid-1950’s Parque Centenario had become a vehicular roundabout at the junction of Carrera 7, Carrera 10 and Calle 26.

The photograph below shows the top of Templete del Libertador on its island roundabout with another Bogotá landmark, Hotel Tequendama in the background.

Parque Centenario continued to be diminished until it was not even a roundabout, just a traffic island slightly larger than the monument.

In 1958 what remained of Parque Centenario was demolished to allow for the widening of Carrera 10. Templete del Libertador was carefully dismantled. The original plan was to relocate the monument to Carrera 13 with Calle 68, that would have placed it in what is today the fashionable Quinta Camacho area slightly to the south and west of Bogotá’s financial district.

Ultimately it was decided to relocate the monument to its current location in the centre of Bogotá. Reconstruction was completed on 29 November, 1958. Continuing the mysterious theme of this simple monument, the pedestal was installed in Parque de los Periodistas without the statue, nobody knows where Ricardo Acevedo’s statue went but Templete del Libertador remained without a Bolívar statue for approximately 15 years.

26 May 1973, Colombian artist Gerardo Benítez’s replacement sculpture was unveiled. The monument and its location have not changed since. But the statue continues to write history even in modern times. In 2018 the Gerardo Benítez statue was removed and replaced with a replica of the Desprey statue making the current statue the fourth Bolívar statue to grace the pedestal of Templete del Libertador.

Parque de los Periodistas

The monument’s surroundings have also changed dramatically. When Templete del Libertador was relocated to Parque de los Periodistas, this famous park was vastly different. The photograph below shows the monument surrounded by trees and Avenida Jiménez with private vehicles. Nowadays it is principally a route for Bogotá’s Transmilenio bus rapid transit system.

The park is now paved and has very few trees, Avenida Jiménez has brick-coloured concrete block paviours and the whole area has been integrated with both the Transmilenio route to Las Aguas station and Regelio Salmona’s Eje Ambiental project. Templete del Libertador was restored in 2008.

Gabriel García Márquez

What? How does Colombia’s most famous son, Nobel Prize winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez fit into this story? Well he does.

In 2014 Gabriel García Márquez sadly passed away. The full name of Parque de los Periodistas is actually Parque de los Periodistas Gabriel García Márquez so it seemed fitting that following his death, his contribution to Colombia should be marked somehow in his namesake park.

In 2015 a competition was held with 16 projects participating. The competition was won by Antioqueño artist Mauricio Arango Mejía and his work of art called Lingotes. The plan was to erect a statue of Gabriel García Márquez in the park currently occupied by Templete del Libertador. Lingotes was to cost 260 million Colombian pesos.

By now it is obvious that where Templete del Libertador is involved, statues are thoroughly jinxed. The residents in surrounding buildings objected to the new statue, apparently two statues is one too many. So Lingotes was finally installed in front of Biblioteca Pública El Tunal Gabriel García Márquez, a public library bearing the author’s name in the south of Bogotá.

Visiting Templete del Libertador

Templete del Libertador is located within Parque de los Periodistas adjacent to Avenida Jiménez in the centre of Bogotá. The nearest Transmilenio station is Las Aguas. You can also see the monument during our Bogotá city tour.

We urge you to visit soon, lest it relocates again or the Bolívar statue takes another vacation.