Cities have unique identities. They have landmarks that express history, culture and geography, offering a sense of belonging and pride to citizens and enticement to visitors.
In Panama City´s landscapes we can find traces of its important contributions to world climate and biodiversity as well as its historical dynamics at the service of world trade.
From the architectural perspective, this "land between the seas", has always been a privileged scenario for utopias and breakthrough engineering, a thermometer to humanity´s needs, genius and development pace, a unique space that favors encounters as a worldwide natural and cultural Agora.
Nevertheless, in sharp contrasts with its rich, internationally renown cosmopolitan role, Panama city´s average citizen does not understand its own territory and often does not even know its basic geographical and urban attributes. The City Gate´s project is, above all, an effort to revert this situation.
The project includes the development of a heritage tourism route throughout the city´s cultural landscapes and the creation of interactive public spaces at the four cardinal points of the city as informal education and cultural event centers. The project also intends to become a urban catalyst.
The City Gates project will be developed in four consecutive phases, one for each gate, the last gate -to be built in 2019- will commemorate the City´s 500 year anniversary, the oldest western city in America´s Pacific coast.