Expansion of the Teatro Colón

Sector: Buildings

Bogotá, Colombia

Project details:

The underground expansion of the Teatro Colón was one of the most challenging geotechnical projects undertaken by GEO in Bogotá. Located in the heart of the city’s historic district and surrounded by buildings of significant architectural and cultural value, the project required rigorous control of deformation, settlement and displacement throughout all excavation and construction phases.

Ground conditions added further complexity. The works were carried out in soils typical of the Bogotá foothills, consisting of granular materials with cobbles and boulders, in an environment with major access and operational constraints. Given the risks associated with conventional solutions, GEO developed an alternative construction approach based on an anchored retaining system using small-diameter drilling techniques. The solution combined a discontinuous wall of secant micropiles, structural concrete walls, high-capacity prestressed anchors and an extensive geotechnical instrumentation network to continuously monitor ground behavior and adjacent structures.

The solution enabled approximately 35,000 m³ of material to be excavated, using micropiles and anchors with capacities ranging from 70 to 120 tonnes. This ensured the stability of an excavation up to 22 m deep without affecting the neighboring historic buildings. Advanced geotechnical models, continuously calibrated using field data collected during construction, made this project a benchmark in urban engineering, combining design, monitoring and safe execution in one of the city’s most sensitive environments.

An excavation up to 22 m deep was successfully completed in Bogotá’s historic center, protecting heritage buildings such as the Catedral Primada, Casa Liévano, Gabriel García Márquez Cultural Center and Hotel de la Ópera through a specialized retaining and instrumentation solution.