Hotel Tequendama

Hotel Tequendama
Hotel Tequendama
	Location of Hotel Tequendama in Bogotá
General information
Status	In use
Address	Carrera 10 #26-21
Town or city	Bogotá
Country	Colombia
Coordinates	4°36′46″N 74°4′22″W / 4.61278°N 74.07278°WCoordinates: 4°36′46″N 74°4′22″W / 4.61278°N 74.07278°W
Elevation	2,598 metres (8,524 ft)
Construction started	1952
Completed	1953
Inaugurated	17 May 1953
Owner	Sercotel
Height	70 metres (230 ft)
Designations	Hotel
Other information
Number of rooms	573
Website
	Official website

The Hotel Tequendama & Centro de Convenciones (Convention Center) is a historic hotel located in the San Diego neighborhood of the town of Santa Fe in the city of Bogotá. It is located on tenth avenue with twenty-sixth avenue . Its construction took place between 1950 and 1951. Between 1967 and 1970 an expansion was carried out that doubled its capacity. It was designed by Holabird & Root, Jhon Burgee and the colombian architectural firm .

History[]

The Hotel Tequendama occupies the grounds where the San Diego cloister used to be raised, in which later the Superior School of War, the Military School and the Ministry of Defense. His property was the first building built in the Centro Internacional Tequendama complex. Its construction took place within the framework of the expansion of Tenth Avenue. In its beginnings it adjoined the Centennial Park. It is the tallest building built in the city in the 1950s.^[1]

On May 17, 1953, it was inaugurated with a banquet attended by the President of Colombia, Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez. Between 1967 and 1970 an extension was carried out in the same style as that of the original building. In this it moved its main entrance to Tenth Avenue, the building was given a T-shaped plan, several conference rooms were added, and its capacity was doubled. For more than 50 years, Hotel Tequendama was managed by the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) for the InterContinental Hotels and Resorts brand, hence the name by which it was known until 2007 as Hotel InterContinental Tequendama. That year it was announced that it would switch to another brand of the Inter Continental Hotels Group (IHG), the Crowne Plaza brand, and it was renamed Hotel Crowne Plaza Tequendama.^[2] Is considered a national monument in Bogotá.^[3]

Etymology[]

Tequendama is a word derived from the Chibcha language of the Muisca, who inhabited the Bogotá savanna in the times before the Spanish conquest. It means "he who precipitates downward".^[4]