Reclaiming White Elephants: how architecture becomes a powerful strategy for a social, political, and revolutionary movement

This project aims to explore the potential of architecture as a catalyst for social and political change. By examining the relationship between the built environment and the community, I will investigate how the design and construction of space can be used to initiate and support a revolutionary movement. The goal is to demonstrate how architecture can play a critical role in shaping a more just and equitable society. In order to develop it, this thesis is composed by the following chapters: firstly, we will address the problematic and its context within the first chapter, Conceptual framework, where we discuss how architecture is a product of society and its political context, acknowledging how it cannot be unattached from the concepts of politics, power, corruption, and revolution. This is broadly explored on the positive aspect of it, where architecture works as a medium of social expression; and on the negative aspect, where architecture appears in the corruptive contexts in the form of public abandoned megastructures known as White Elephants. Its causes are further explored and developed in order to move on to a contextual analysis. In the second chapter, Contextual analysis, this problematic of White Elephants and corruption finds itself in the grounds of Colombia, and more specifically, Bogotá. A profile of the city is done to identify its historic political correlation with architecture so far and how the incidence of White Elephants has been in it. After, we categorise Bogota’s White Elephants and prioritise them to obtain the most feasible one to bring upon the aim of this experimental project. Further analysis, resulting from a prioritisation process, leads us to the district of Teusaquillo, where we also study its political history with architecture and characterise the zone and profile, including the population that lives in it and the eventually prioritised White Elephants that resulted in that district. In opposite to the negative projects undeveloped, we expose architectonic repurposing projects that have been a successful example on how to handle abandoned buildings. Following to the third chapter, Strategy, we scale down to the chosen White Elephant to work on, assessing its current damage and developing the strategies that, in the aim of this project, will be replicable to further White Elephants if desired, along with the interventions that will be specifically made to the chosen building, which will work as an experimental case study working hand in hand with the community at place. Finally, in the last section, Conclusions, we will summarise the main findings of the project and conclude about the potential of architecture as a strategy for social and political change. Through an analysis of the design strategies and interventions, we will demonstrate how the manipulation and construction of space can be used to initiate and support a revolutionary movement. Additionally, we will discuss the limitations and challenges faced during the project and suggest possible areas for future research.