From an architectural point of view, the historic center is made up of residential houses built around patios, the basic type of traditional building. The size of the lot determines the placing of the patio, which, in turn, defines the spatial arrangement of the different units of the building. The most important spaces of the house are organized around the patio and generally placed along the section that fronts the street, which has an entrance hallway perpendicular to the front and social areas, like the vestibule and salon. The rear section holds the spaces of a semi-private character, like the dining room, and the side sections house the bedrooms. At times, these houses also have a second or a third patio, running front to back, which are also surrounded by their respective units.

During the republican period new spaces were incorporated, like the service areas and the kitchen, generally in the lateral unit of the rear patio. And in many cases, a second storey, following the arrangement of the first, was added. On the front appeared cornices, moldings and enclosed balconies. which were the architectural solution of that time to the problem of the city´ s cold climate. Examples of this kind of domestic architecture are the Quinta de Bolívar, the 20th of July House, the Casa de los Comuneros, the Casa del Marqués de San Jorge, the Casa Casabianca and the Palacio Echeverri.

It is important to point out that the city did not have imposing public buildings in the colonial period. Among the relatively modest structures of this kind, a notable survivor is the Casa de Moneda (or colonial mint), despite the remodeling that removed its old industrial structures, and the Astronomical Observatory, one of the most important works of its time. In the 19th century, institutional architecture carne to the fore with the construction of the National Capital. The public image given to such buildings began to acquire importance, with a clear reliance on the neo-classical language developed in Europe, particularly France. Among the most outstanding examples are the Liévano building, the Palacio de la Carrera and the offices of the Governor of Cundinamarca.

One of the leading characteristics of the city´ s commercial architecture was the appearance of shopping arcades, built at the end of the 19th century, with the idea of grouping together a number of small premises along a street in a shopping district. A surviving example is the Hernández passage and building, which combined ground-floor shops with offices on the upper floors, a scheme that was later adopted by its neighbor, the former headquarters of the Banco Alemán Antioqueño.

Office buildings form an important category of edifices in the historic center of the city. Those which date from the republican period are no higher than six stories and their floor plan is developed around a central patio. The entrance is announced by means of architectural elements in the composition of the facade, as in the case of the Piedrahita building, whose singular decoration is inspired by pre-Columbian motifs. Later on, new materials, like iron, were used in the construction of these types of buildings, which enabled them become as high as ten stories, while the ground floor was used for commercial premises. Among them it is worth mentioning the Vásquez and Cubill buildings and the former office of the Colombiana de Seguros.
With the arrival of modern architecture the main characteristics of office buildings underwent many changes.

The aesthetic of solidity and ornamentation gave way to the predominance of light surfaces and clean lines, through the use of such innovations as strip windows. And, in structural terms, platforms were employed in a number office buildings, so that the building could follow the line of the street, as seen in the former headquarters of the Banco de Bogotá and Antioqueño banks.

The restorations that have been carried out in the historic zone of La Candelaria have demonstrated a considerable variety of criteria about what constitutes a suitable intervention. The earliest ones, done in the 1960s, showed a marked tendency towards interventions that were not supported by historical or technical research. Nevertheless, since the 1990s there have been considerable advances in this field and there has been some serious and conscientious restoration work done in the Quinta de Bolívar, the Cathedral and the Capitol.