This article exposes building details of the Cathedral and the church of Santo Domingo, in the Colombian city of Cartagena de Indias. This two analyzed churches were planned the same as the beginning of the construction in the 16th century, having clear Spanish influences. Both churches preserve good part of the architectural, technical, spatial and decorative elements with those which were conceived, in spite of the passage of time and the modifications that have suffered throughout the time. Likewise, both are declared as Goods of Cultural Interest of National Character. There turns out to be specially interesting the tracking of the precedents and references, Iberian and Spanish-American, that are observed in other relatively contemporary buildings. It is also surprising to detect the early influences of architectural treatises, specially I quattro libri dell'architettura, by Andrea Palladio, published initially in Venice 1.570. The particular conditions of the city, the raw materials and the personnel in charge of the works, with their big economic and technical difficulties; marked the architecture of these two valuable buildings, conceived with big pretensions and constructed with big difficulties and a marked lack of means.