Geometry and Construction at Cartagena de Indias Baseball Stadium’s Thin Shell Roofs (Colombia, 1947)

Abstract

Concrete and reinforced-brick shells were introduced and actively developed in Colombia during the 1940s and 1950s. Formal, technical approaches were adapted to the regional context. In this paper, new materials are proposed for analysis in the particularly light roof designs by Guillermo González Zuleta (1916–1995) as a part of a larger Colombian building collection on thin membranes from that period. In 1947, González Zuleta, a consulting and building engineer, developed stands and roofing for the baseball stadium in Cartagena, Colombia using 16.59 m long cantilevers that supported 5 cm thick vaulted shells. His design has received international recognition since 1948. The vaults are supported by a set of 12 concrete frames resulting from a rational geometrical layout that operates as the basic design and dimensional tool. The resulting structure effectively responds to mechanical and spatial criteria and is appropriately adapted to the local climate and resources.