A prison will become a cultural center in Antioquia

One of the streets that surround the Parque Principal in the municipality of La Estrella, south of the Aburrá Valley, will be the space for a new cultural center. In which a prison was originally built that later became the seat of the first telegraph in the municipality, then the office of the Municipal Council, later registry office and mayor's office, the Museum-Theater La Estrella will soon lie. Today, the space is declared as an Asset of Cultural Interest and Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage, it is undergoing complete refurbishment and awaits its new resurgence.

According to the undersecretary of culture in the municipality, Juan Pablo Borja, there are two reasons for the restoration of the property: 1.) The intention of providing citizens with a space for meeting and meeting, with the aim of recovering the community ties and the social fabric that have been so affected by the pandemic. Strengthen the municipal identity among its inhabitants. “When someone loses their memory, they lose behaviors, thoughts, activities, emotions that make up their identity and it is more difficult for them to articulate one. The same happens with the territories,” says the undersecretary.

It may interest you: This is what the house where Shakira lived in Barranquilla looks like today, before fame

The Museum-Theatre La Estrella, which promises to be one of the largest cultural spaces in the region, will include two macro-spaces aimed at the rescue of the municipality's archaeological legacy and the promotion of creative activities. “The municipality has a great archaeological fortress, there have been discoveries of elements that tell the long ancestral history prior to its foundation,” explains Borja. In the first one, the museum will operate and in the second one there will be rooms for artistic exhibitions, as well as spaces for workshops and talks. The hospital that worked right next to the house will become a theater with capacity for around 500 people and will have the various technical adaptations to accommodate various formats such as dance, theater, music and literature. “The idea is to provide a permanent cultural offer for the entire community.” There will also be a square where a café will operate, right in the middle of both spaces.

The undersecretary explains that the project has four phases. In the first, which is supported by the Fundación Ferrocarril de Antioquia, a diagnostic study will be carried out that will allow the generation of a technical proposal that will define the specific way in which the intervention of the building should proceed. “Because it is a Property of Cultural Interest, it cannot have an intervention process like any other property,” Borja says. It will then begin a resource management process in which Juan Sebastián Abada, mayor of the municipality, and Juan David Palacio, director of the Aburrá Valley Metropolitan Area, will establish alliances to raise the nearly 20 billion pesos that the work will cost.

It may interest you: This is what is happening with the programming of the Ibero-American Theater Festival in Bogotá

Once all the resources have been defined, the construction process begins, starting with the demolition of the hospital. It is expected that by mid-2023 the work will be delivered in its entirety and thus begin the last phase of the project, which is to launch the entire cultural, academic and social offer. This work is an example of how the Aburrá Valley Metropolitan Area is committed to the advancement of the sector and the promotion of culture in it. The investment will not only be in space but in the entire municipality and the region. What is wanted is to place it on the tourists' radar and appropriate its inhabitants of its spaces.

KEEP READING: