Casa Museo Jorge Eliécer Gaitán

The Casa Museo Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Bogotá, Colombia, is the preserved home of the Liberal politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Colombian politics. Gaitán was a lawyer and orator who served as mayor of Bogotá in 1936 and 1937, as minister of education and of labour, and as leader of the Liberal Party, and he built a mass following among workers and the urban poor with a programme of social reform. As the leading candidate for the 1950 presidential election, he was shot on 9 April 1948 on Carrera 7 in central Bogotá. His death set off the Bogotazo, days of riots that devastated the city centre and marked the start of the period of partisan violence known as La Violencia, which lasted more than a decade. The house museum keeps the domestic spaces where he lived and worked, including a study and a library of several thousand volumes, along with photographs, documents, furniture and personal objects. Its approach is that of a house museum rather than a chronological survey: visitors are led through the rooms to understand his life, his family and his political thought, with panels connecting the objects to the events of 1948 and their consequences. The building is a residential house of its period, and its condition reflects restoration by the state to keep it as a heritage site. Gaitán's tomb lies in the Cementerio Central, which is often visited in the same route, together with the Centro de Memoria, Paz y Reconciliación. Interpretation is in Spanish, and visitors are advised to check the current opening hours and any guided-visit arrangements before travelling, since schedules for small house museums can change. The museum offers a personal view of a period that is central to understanding modern Colombia.