The 66-storey tall BD Bagata in Bogota by Alonso-Balaguer y Arquitectos Asociados

Crowd-funding brings the skyscraper back to Bogotá

66-storey BD Bagata tower by Alonso-Balaguer y Arquitectos Asociados will be tallest building in Colombia

The term ‘landmark building’ gets bandied around a lot by the architectural world but with a new development in Colombia, it’s taken on real meaning. A skyscraper slated for Bogotá is the result of what's being billed as the world’s biggest crowd-funding campaign. What’s more, it would be the country’s tallest building and first sky-scraper to go up there for 40 years. That’s a lot of achievements, and they're largely down to the crowd-funding site Prodigy Network, which was set up by a local real estate entrepreneur. 

Called BD Bagata, the 66-storey tower by Alonso-Balaguer y Arquitectos Asociados in Barcelona, would stand in Bogotá Downtown, and accommodate offices, a three-floor shopping mall, 396 apartments and a 364-room hotel. The hope is that come 2015, when it’s up and running, it will attract 12,000 visitors a day. This ambitious scheme has been funded locally by 3,500 investors who have put in a total of more than $200m.

The building is designed as a series of stepped blocks, with the hotel occupying the tallest one. Although the architects are not getting much credit from Prodigy Network, and it may not be the very best-looking tower out there, they're undstandably proud of their achievement. “High-rise buildings like that of Bacata demonstrate that the compact city is today’s best possible urban answer in many cases,” say Alonso-Balaguer y Arquitectos Asociados. If you're an architecture enthusiast and you haven't done so already you really should download The Phaidon Architecture Travel Guide App. With 1,500 buildings from 840 different architectural practices around the world you'll never be at a loss for an architectural excursion, wherever you are in the world.