February 9, 2026
The Center for Memory, Peace, and Reconciliation mostly focuses on atrocities and assassinations that happened in Bogotá during Colombia’s violent history of the last decades.

Here’s a description of the Center from Spaces of Restorative and Transitional Justice :

Background information:

In Colombia, transitional justice is understood as a set of mechanisms, both judicial and extra-judicial, that guarantee the rights of the victims of the internal armed conflict. These mechanisms were incorporated into the countries constitution in 2017 and is officially referred to as the Integrated System for Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition (Sistema Integral de Verdad, Justicia, Reparación Y No Repetición. This integrated system is composed of three institutions:
– Peace Tribunal (Justicia Especial para la Paz)
– Truth Comission (Comisión de la Verdad)
– Search Unit for Disappeared People (Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas)

Is this space designed/arranged for safe listening?

Yes, it has private rooms for attention to victims of the conflict.

Is restorative justice actually taking place in this space?

No, but it has the potential to become a site for these practices.Some public encounters between victims, civil society and Ex-Guerrilla members have happened in this space. In March 2018, The Center of Memory in Bogota was the space where women victims and ex-guerilla members held an emotional meeting to share life experiences during the war. The victims agreed that their role was not an obstacle to agree on the need to rebuild the social fabric, seeking to transform the past into opportunities for the future.

Who is the audience/the intended participants for this space?

Conflict victims and civil society in general.

How or to what extent is this space public?

It is a public building and has public spaces but they have a visiting schedule from 8 am to 5 pm. Monday and Sunday closed.

What are the politics of this space, either in terms of its location, design, spatial, or visual aspects?

It is an important space for documentation of conflict and generation of collective memory. The center states the importance of Social memory as a transitional justice tool. As a result of a public contest of architecture, the project of Juan Pablo Ortiz architects, established a meaningful and emotional relation with the victims, as part of the initial stage of the construction process. From the beginning of the project, a deep respect for the memory and unique conditions of the place were established as a priority. For this reason, the construction of the Center started with a series of community activities that included the participation of more than two thousand people.

Different collectives that represented the affected populations of the Colombian internal conflict were called to perform ten symbolic actions. A total of 2600 individuals gathered on the site to share their stories and to make personal contributions of soil brought from their hometowns. These contributions were storage in glass pipes that are now a visible and integral part of the building.

Physical/factual description of space:

The Center of memory is a building composed of two joined structures: a monolithic volumen made out of 200 layers of soil that represent the 200 years of independence of Colombia, and an underground section that balances the relations with the natural, urban and social surroundings. The project was intentionally built with a formal simplicity to obtain space flexibility and an easy change of use in the future.

Sustainability was a key aspect of the building design. The architects worked to generate a low impact construction that respected the surrounding historic sites. More than 70% of the building is implanted under the soil to generate the least environmental and landscape impact. The underground section includes a sequence of courtyards that enable illuminated cross-ventilated interior areas. The project is located at the grounds of a mass grave, next to the central cemetery of the city and a metropolitan park. The building honours the lives of the individuals resting in the site, and therefore looks for a deep connection with the land.

“An architecture that respects the cemetery, with silent and timeless features, with a subtle recognition throughout the park landscape is proposed” (Ortiz, 2018). The building was constructed with local, solid and long-lasting materials. A research on vernacular techniques of construction was conducted to find the appropriate matter. As limitations of construction techniques with 100% organic materials were found, the structure was built using 90% of inorganic soil and 10% of cement, in order to meet the seismic resistance rules of the city.

The building is located in one of the most deprived areas of Bogota, between el Samper and el Santa Fe neighbourhoods, near the city center. It is easily reachable by public transportation, and it became an urban connector, distributing pedestrian traffic from the park, the avenue and its surroundings. The construction of the project was completely financed by the Mayor’s Office and the Local Council. It is property of the Secretary of Government of the city that guarantees the site operation. The center has been open for ten years.

Analytical description of space:

The Center of Memory was built to create a space where memory and conflict victims were dignified. It was originally an idea of human right defenders to serve as a site that supported the culture of peace during the internal conflict. It opened its doors in December 2012, as part of the program Bogota City of Memory of the High Council for the Rights of Victims, Peace and Reconciliation. Since then, it has become a space that welcomes diversity and provides an opportunity for changing the meaning of Colombian violent history.

The center commemorates the victims of the conflict and upholds the values of peace, truth, justice and reconciliation, by offering spaces for attention and assistance to visitors. It has available spaces for teaching, community meetings, divulgation services and peace campaigns, related to the internal conflict. The mission of the Center is to provide a space for the reconciliation and transformation of collective imaginaries related to the internal conflict. Moreover, it contributes to a peace building process while making visible the different experiences of victims. The center promotes exhibitions, art performances, and collaborative initiatives that generate the creation and construction of collective memory and reconciliation.

The first thing you see when you enter the building is an interactive map, where you can see assassinations and massacres that happened around the Bogotá area. The pictures and names of the victims are matched with the locations where they were murdered. The Youtube Embed option on WordPress wouldn’t let me embed a Youtube link, so you can find it here. There’s also some great political graffiti, which I wrote about last time we were in Colombia

This collection of soil from sites of massacres and assassinations is reminiscent of the the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally called “the Lynching Museum,” which we visited on our Southern tour of U.S. civil rights landmarks. The translation of the plaque reads

THIS MEMORIAL
FOR LIFE
is inhabited by handfuls of earth
contributed by the public over seven years.
With the 2,012 glass tubes embedded in these walls, 
we symbolize more than forty thousand records
of people who were victims of murder and disappearances, 
and thousands of testimonies delivered with the earth sown with memory.
We recover voices, struggles, we make visible what has been hidden, disappeared, or silenced, because memory resists death.
Because we build the past so that dreams may return.

Translation of plaque:

EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS: DEATH AS A REWARD
The term “false positives” became popular to describe the extrajudicial executions committed by members of the National Army against innocent civilians, mostly young people from impoverished backgrounds seeking work or better opportunities for their families. These victims were presented as guerrillas killed in combat in order to inflate military statistics in the fight against insurgent groups. In exchange, those responsible received promotions, leave, decorations, and other rewards. Most of these crimes were recorded between 2002 and 2008 in different regions of the country. In the Bogotá area, the phenomenon became more notorious with victims in Ciudad Bolívar and Soacha, where an estimated 19 young people were murdered.

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) has documented 6,402 victims between 2002 and 2008 as part of its investigation into Case 03. As of August 2025, 182 people had been charged as the main perpetrators, most of them members of the Armed Forces and other state agents. Eighty-five percent of the members of the security forces involved have accepted responsibility. In the most advanced sub-cases concerning enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions—such as those in Norte de Santander, the Las Mercedes Cemetery in Dabeiba (Antioquia), the La Popa Battalion in Cesar, and Casanare—50 members of the security forces and third parties have acknowledged their responsibility for these serious human rights violations and breaches of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

Besides the permanent exhibits, the museum also has classrooms for students to learn about the history of human rights abuses in the Bogota area, and revolving exhibitions. One of these exhibitions was about small rural community impacted by Bógota’s suburban sprawl. Alto Fucha has provided safe spaces for former guerrillas and their victims to meet. Translation of banner:

FUCHA: BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS AND THE CITY
In the upper reaches of the Eastern Hills lies the Alto Fucha region, the source of the river that bears its name. This ecosystem has been affected since the mid-1980s by unchecked population growth, largely due to forced displacement. This is compounded by pressure from private and state actors to construct large-scale urban and tourism projects, which have led to further displacement, gentrification, and various forms of violence. With the deterioration of the environmental balance, natural disasters—such as landslides and mudslides—have also occurred, primarily impacting the most vulnerable population in the area.

Amid this process of territorial transformation, the construction of the National Army’s Logistics Training Battalion in the Fucha River basin not only caused serious environmental damage but also solidified a militarized relationship with the territory.

On September 12, 2024, the Specialized Forensic Analysis and Techniques Group (GATEF)
of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) confirmed the discovery of human skeletal remains within the facilities of this battalion, as part of investigations stemming from the statements of Sergeant José Leonairo Dorado, who confessed to his participation in acts of torture and other human rights violations, including the disappearance of Pedro Movilla.

In response to these events, the community has organized to defend its territory, primarily through Community Action Boards, using initiatives such as Environmental Classrooms, Eco-classrooms, and spaces like the House of Rain, where artistic, cultural, and peace education processes are developed. Likewise, collectives such as Huertopía and Endémico Andino continue working to care for nature, its healing through the recovery of ancestral knowledge, and the construction of new ways of inhabiting and organizing the city.

What can we learn from rural ways of inhabiting and remembering?

Included in the Alta Fucha exhibit were short films about the ecosystem and the residents telling their stories.

Another temporary exhibit explored Colombian trans history and other LGBTQ+ stories. Below are some of the quotations on the wall:

“They told me they were going to rape me to cure me of my effeminate nature.
That they were going to teach me how to be a real woman.”
Testimony of a trans woman displaced by paramilitaries in the Caribbean

“In the neighborhood, bodies of transvestites began to appear with signs that read:’This is what happens to you for not respecting.'”
Testimony of a resident of Medellín

“We are victims too, but we are never invited to memorial events.
“Trans activist, Bogotá

“Telling our stories is dangerous, but silence is more so.
If we don’t speak out, they will continue to believe that we don’t exist.”
LGBTIQ Collective of Valle del Cauca

“Absentes Presentes”—Those who are missing, disappeared, or dead, but present in the memories of the people. At the annual protest at the School of the Americas/WHINSEC in Fort Benning, GA, participants carry crosses bearing the names of those killed by graduates of this school. As their names are called out, the crowd sings a mournful chant, “Presente.” The translation of the plaque:

Enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity that, due to its complexity, has been difficult to measure, resulting in institutional databases that frequently have inconsistent figures. This is largely due to underreporting between reported cases and those without a formal complaint. It is estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 people living in the city are missing; however, more than 18,000 people have declared themselves victims in Bogotá, most of them from other regions of the country.

Currently, the Search Unit for Missing Persons (UBPD) has two regional search plans involving the Capital District: one focused on the Sumapaz district and its surrounding municipalities, and a regional plan covering the rest of the districts. The latter establishes that, of the 132,877 people reported missing, 3,678 were registered in Cundinamarca between 1948 and 2016, of which
1,714 correspond to events that occurred in Bogotá. As of April 2024, there were 473
search requests.

The Observatory of Memory and Conflict (OMC) of the CNMH attributes 19.8% to paramilitaries, 13.8% to the State, and 7% to guerrillas, while the Truth Commission (CEV) identifies paramilitaries as responsible for 52.8% and the FARC-EP for 24.2%. Besides the civilian population, both members of the armed forces and insurgent groups are among the victims of this crime.

These figures have made Bogotá an epicenter for organizations and families of victims who actively search for missing persons, as well as create and promote profound processes of memory and the search for truth, justice, and reparations. Among them are the Association of Families of the Detained and Disappeared (ASFADDES), the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation, FUNVIDES, the Reencuentros Corporation, the Colombian Association of Victims of Kidnapping and Forced Disappearance (ACOMIDES), among many others.

What implications does disappearance have on how it is silenced, forgotten, or remembered in Bogotá? To what extent does it fuel endless searches?

This graph shows the number of kidnappings in Colombia and the locations where they have happened the most.

Outside the museum, what should have a moving collection of letters to and from prisoners, from families to the authorities, from former prisoners to their torturers, was crippled by a design flaw. The white lettering on transparent glass was almost impossible to read while the sun was shining. Bogota does have a lot of cloudy days, but this was not one of them. I fiddled with filters, contrast and other techniques to make the writing legible, but was not successful.

That night we went out to eat with friends and found this graffiti: “Beware of Sad Dog.”