The Banco de la República’s Cultural Center in Armenia is a place for exploration and encounters with knowledge around the cultural landscape of Colombia’s coffee region, the Eje Cafetero.
Banco de la República Cultural Center in Barranquilla is a place intended to strengthen the cultural heritage of the city and the surrounding region as well as knowledge exchange and discussions on artistic creation on the Caribbean coast of Colombia.
The cultural activity of Banco de la República has its origin in Bogotá, shortly after the creation of the central bank in 1923. The history of the bank has always included cultural and artistic production in different regions of the country.
The Banco de la República Cultural Center in Bucaramanga opened its doors in September 1985, which gave way to the bank's cultural work in the region. Despite infrastructural limitations.
Since March 7, 2002, Banco de la República’s Library and Cultural Center have provided the public in Buenaventura with the services of the Library Network and held various cultural activities.
The cultural offering of Banco de la República in Cali began in 1984 with a collection of 72 books and 6 journal titles on economic and administrative topics, which had been part of the specialized collection of the bank's Economic Research Department.
In the 1970s, with the financial support of Banco de la República and Proexpo, modernization efforts were carried out in Cartagena to help the city's tourist and cultural infrastructure. This is how the idea for buildings such as the Convention Center was conceived.
The Banco de la República Cultural Center in Cúcuta opened to the public in February 1985 with its offices in the old facilities of Banco de la República, located on the corner of Calle 10 and Avenida 5, in the center of the city. Initially, it only had a small room and its work was essentially inter-institutional.
As Florencia was the capital of the Special Precinct of Caquetá, in 1932, the Board of Directors of the Banco de la República approved the opening of an agency of the central bank, which was initially located on the southeast side of Plaza Pizarro, now Santander Park
The Banco de la República has been operating in Girardot since November 1928, in response to growing commercial development at this port city on the Magdalena River. In the year 1962, Banco de la República’s executive committee decided to elevate the agency in Girardot to a branch office in recognition of the importance the city had acquired as a commercial, agricultural, and ranching center.
After the words of the then-general manager of Banco de la República, Miguel Urrutia Montoya, on May 21, 1998, the Cultural Center was inaugurated in the city of Honda. On this date, the library's doors were opened to the public for it to enjoy a series of collections carefully chosen to meet the interests of students, professionals, and general public
Banco de la República’s cultural policy is to promote, disseminate, encourage, and decentralize cultural activity in the regions. The Darío Echandía Library began its activities in Ibagué on March 20, 1984, as part of this policy.
Banco de la República’s activity in Ipiales began when the central bank's agency in the city was inaugurated on August 31, 1979 by Dr. Rafael Gama Quijano, the bank’s general manager, and Dr. Jenaro Delgado Salazar, the first agency manager. The agency provided banking services in Ipiales from September 3, 1979.
The Banco de la República Cultural Center in Leticia has been in operation for 25 years, during which it has continuously offered varied programming of a very high caliber. However, in 2011 the Cultural Center registered a total of 109,032 visits, so a decision was made for the Cultural Center’s services and spaces to be expanded and improved.
The new Manizales Cultural Center was designed taking the city’s specific needs into account, gathered through studies with specialized audiences and focus groups and an in-depth analysis of the cultural offerings of Colombia’s coffee region.
Banco de la República began its activities in the city of Medellín in a storefront of the Mejía & Company building, located on the eastern side of the Berrío Park (on Carrera Palacé), south of the Temple of Our Lady of Candelaria. The central bank’s agency—later a branch—occupied most of the space in the building, built between 1905 and 1909 by Horacio Marino Rodríguez.
The Banco de la República Cultural Center in Montería is located in the center of the city, very close to the main park and Ronda del Sinú, a place that lends itself to reading activities in the park. The center is near several banks, educational institutions such as the National Unified Corporation of Higher Education (CUN).
In 1925, the central bank opened an agency in the city of Neiva. It became a branch in 1950, by order of the board of directors. In 1967, the current offices were inaugurated on Calle 6 and Carrera 5. Until 2005, it served as an office for financial services and advisory and the department’s center for economic studies.
The Pasto Cultural Center owes its name to the most prominent intellectual in Nariño’s history, Leopoldo López Álvarez (1891-1940), a renowned lawyer and professor who became famous for translating The Aeneid, Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics; Homer’s Iliad, Odyssey, and Hymns, the Seven Tragedies of Aeschylus, and the comedies of Aristophanes into Spanish from Greek and Latin.
The Banco de la República began its activities in Pereira in 1927 with the objective of supporting the growing economic development of the region and stimulating the commercial vocation of the second largest city of the department of Caldas at that time.
The building where the Banco de la República Cultural Center in Popayán is currently located was built by Belgian architect Joseph Maertens and sponsored by President Pedro Nel Ospina during his administration (1922-1926).
In 1938, the Banco de la República building in Chocó was built. Located in the northeast corner of Centennial Park, the construction broke with the traditional landscape of wooden houses that had characterized this part of Quibdó for several decades.
On July 1, 1965, Riohacha became one of the three cities in the Caribbean Region to have a Banco de la República, along with Barranquilla and Montería. Since its creation in 1981, the Cultural Center in Riohacha has focused its programming on strengthening and disseminating cultural processes and building a sense of citizenship in the department of La Guajira.
On November 27, 1967, a project for the construction of a Banco de la República branch in San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina was started, which at the time was a Special Intendancy, not yet a department of Colombia.
In May 1925, the Banco de la República agency opened its doors in Santa Marta, in premises shared with Banco Agrícola. Its first director was Dr. José Ramón Lanao Tovar, who resigned in January 1929 and was replaced by Manuel A. Valencia. In the first half of 1932, the Banco de la República building was inaugurated.
The presence of Banco de la República in Sincelejo dates back to 1945, when it opened an economic agency in a building owned by Mr. Rafael Vergara Méndez on the former Calle Real. In 1965, the construction of the central bank's offices in the city was completed at Calle 23 # 18 - 30, allowing the agency to become a branch.
The Banco de la República Cultural Center in Tunja is usually housed in the San Agustin Cloister (currently being restored), a building that enjoys priority monumental conservation status. Besides being part of the National Monument that makes up Tunja’s historical city center, it is a place that preserves objects and memories that provide an account of their context of conception and planning from the 14th century to today.
The Banco de la República Cultural Center in Valledupar, located in the city center, is a space for encounters and permanent dialogue with various cultural expressions. Its facilities make it possible to enjoy a bibliographic collection that is robust and up to date in different areas of knowledge. It has general reading rooms, children's rooms, and a multipurpose room, where a project-based cultural program is offered.
Banco de la República began operating as an agency in Villavicencio just when Meta went from being an intendancy to a department on July 1, 1960. It opened an office on the second floor of the departmental administration building that was also beginning to operate as the Governor’s Office of Meta.