History of Medellin

vigado (in the metropolitan area of Medellín), the cartoonist Ricardo Rendón and the poet León de Greiff were some of the founders of Los Panidas, a Medellín literary movement. Other featured poets and writers were Porfirio Barba-Jacob and Efe Gómez. In painting, the most famous were Eladio Vélez and Pedro Nel Gómez. Carlos Vieco Ortiz was a popular composer and musician. Medellín became the headquarters of record labels like Sonolux, Ondina and Silver.

Medellín clubs, many of them dating to the end of the 19th century, also became a center for intellectual and industrialist movements, like the Club Union (founded in 1894) and Club Campestre (founded in 1924). In 1909 the Circo España was created and Teatro Bolívar, in 1919. The beautiful Teatro Junín was demolished to build the Coltejer Tower. Cine Colombia, the first movie distributor of the country, was founded in Medellín in 1927.

Medellín Master Plan

During the 1950s, industrialists, traders and local government created the "Medellín Master Plan" (MMP) (Plan Piloto), a plan for the expansion of the city into the Aburrá Valley that would lead to the creation of the first metropolitan area in Colombia. Paul Lester Wiener and José Luis Sert were the architects who led the project. Among the main features of the MMP were the canalization of the Medellín River, the control of new settlements on valley slopes, the creation of an industrial zone in the Guayabal District, the planning of the city to be in harmony with the river, the construction of a city stadium, and an administrative center in La Alpujarra.

However, Colombia had entered a new era of political instability with the murder of presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitán in Bogotá in 1948. Political