Shimmering Rainforest Architecture
Quibdó, located in Colombia’s Chocó region, is an unusual urban center within one of the world’s most biodiverse rainforests. Historically home to Indigenous communities and later a hub for gold and platinum mining during colonial times, it has evolved into a majority Afro-Colombian city—unique in Colombia for having Afro-descendants as both the dominant population and ruling class.
The city’s architecture reflects its complex socio-economic and environmental history. Traditional indigenous dwellings—elevated, circular, open-air structures—were adapted by Afro-Colombian communities into rectangular homes with added walls and doors, built with local materials like bamboo, palm leaves, and lime. Over time, migration and modernization introduced materials like brick, concrete, and metal, leading to hybrid architectural styles and the marginalization of traditional forms.
Today, Quibdó is known for its palafitos (homes on stilts) and increasingly for the use of metallic siding materials, particularly self-adhesive aluminum foil insulation imported from China. This reflective material, originally intended for roofs, is now widely applied to building walls as protection against the city’s extreme rainfall, humidity, and heat. This innovation—shiny, inexpensive, and climate-resilient—has become both a functional and symbolic element of urban architecture, signaling modernity and social status.
Kurt Hollander is originally from NYC and currently lives in Cali, Colombia. He is a writer and fine art/documentary photographer. A series of his photographs of architecture in Colombia was exhibited at the 2025 Venice Biennale.
