Tabula rasa meets resilience: urban reconstruction and the dilemmas of the modern planning in Chillán, Chile (1939)

On January 24, 1939 an intense earthquake -equivalent to 7.8 degrees on Richter scale- shattered the city of Chillán (Chile) killing 20,000 people and implicating the destruction of the economic basis of a large region of the country, involving some 600 km long. This devastation resulted in the complete reorganization of prevention systems, planning and reconstruction, giving rise to new government structures and policies related to both urban development and the possibilities of restoring urban dynamics. The paper will present, on the one hand, the new institutional structures developed from the experience, including the Corporación de Fomento (CORFO) -an institution created to promote the reconstruction of regional and national economy, based on Keynesian principles for intervention and state’s promotion as regards economy and industrial production- and the Corporación para la Reconstrucción y Auxilio (CRA) -an agency concerned with the physical reconstruction of infrastructure, towns and cities; integral regional and urban planning and financial and credit management, both for the public and private sphere. On the other, at the urban level -and particularly in the case concerning the reconstruction of Chillán- urban visions were varied. Among those, the protagonists were only two: tabula rasa and traditional planning. Planning alternatives and its ideas will be presented, including the failure to develop the destroyed cities plans by Le Corbusier and a significant proposal by Waldo Parragués, following the same corbusian ideas established in the ‘Ville Radieuse’ project. At the same time, the more definitive strategies contemplated a model of plan that would set the basis for the establishment of analytical and operational planning nationwide, via the Dirección General de Obras Públicas Planning Section. The debate for the reconstruction of Chillán called for various urban approaches, forms and figures of modern planning, aiming to a model that incorporated both the dimensions of a new way of organizing the city, as the aspects related to its future capacity of resisting an earthquake similar to that occurred in 1939, mainly by means of zoning in relation to soil resistance and construction technologies possible to be used in public and private buildings.

On Modern Architecture and Synthesis of the Arts: Dilemmas, Approaches, Vicissitudes

The concept of “synthesis of the arts” became, in the 1940s, a leading principle in the search for renewing and improving modern architecture. Integration with painting and sculpture sought at bringing closer architecture and the people. But many dilemmas stood on the way: from the collaboration processes and the unity of the artistic experience, to “art for art’s sake” predominance or its social content. In the university cities of Mexico and Caracas as well as Burle Marx’s landscapes, the concept of integration reached wider scales. But it found its crisis in the extension to urban planning and the city - which had been, paradoxically, its ultimate target

Reuse and Transformation of a Modern Movement Masterpiece: UN-CEPAL-ECLAC Building, Santiago de Chile

Recent interventions in modern oeuvres of high cultural significance have set new challenges, opening discussion on the various positions associated with their preservation and sustainability. In particular, the relationship between newly conceived architecture and modern heritage, for which the analysis of the design in the original building, the ideas promoted in terms of its significance and the results obtained in material terms, become the key features in each case. The experience of the United Nations ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) building in Santiago, Chile, may, in this sense, be of special interest in order to verify possibilities of sustainability that assume both the contingencies among which the rehabilitation process takes place and the values recognized in the building as monument

Searching Paradise

According to Alvar Aalto, raising the quality of life did not lie in technical and economic capabilities but in the creative work of architects, whose “houses are built where people can lead happy lives,” and only reachable “by concentrating on human happiness.” This search for paradise, magnificently expressed by the Finnish architect, has guided countless projects in modern architecture. The house, the place of home, the world and container of the everyday individual and family life has been the privileged set of this implicit exploration, where many paradises can be recognised. It is about achieving adequate protection and getting a space where satisfaction becomes a daily joy for those who live in it: happiness as an attainable goal

Arquiteturas da grande cidade

Modern architecture built the cities and shaped the process of urban concentration in Chile between 1930-1960, a process involving not only a metropolis like Santiago but also intermediate cities. Both public and private architecture led the spatial transformation of the city, understood as the engine of economic growth relying on building industry and modern architecture. Modern architecture unified clear ideas on a new kind of city that unfolded along the territory. Recurrent historiographical interpretation of the urban phenomenon and actual transformation of the cities has given greater importance to capital or larger cities, overshadowing the consideration of the phenomenon’s extension to the entire territory. The examples of Osorno (1930s), Chillán (1940s) and Arica (1950-1960s) show the temporal transit of modern ideas and the dialectical relationship between modern architecture and the city. Keywords: Chilean arquitecture; modernity; urban development.A arquitetura moderna deu forma aos processos de concentração urbana no Chile entre 1930 e 1960, não só das grandes cidades como das intermediárias. Tanto a iniciativa pública quanto a privada foram protagonistas de uma transformação espacial da cidade, entendida também como motor do próprio crescimento econômico, ao depositar confiança na indústria da construção e na produção da arquitetura moderna. As concepções arquitetônicas desse momento integraram ideias claras sobre um novo tipo de urbe que se desdobrava sobre o território. Os casos de Osorno nos anos 1930, Chillán nos 1940 e Arica nos 1950-1960 são exemplos claros da transição temporal das ideias e da relação dialética entre arquitetura moderna e desenvolvimento urbano. Palavras-chave: arquitetura chilena; modernidade; desenvolvimento urbano.&nbsp

Arica, 1950-80: the urban form of development: structure and the logic of the parts in the urban sprawl

La ponencia presenta las formas que asumió la configuración del crecimiento extensivo de una ciudad de tamaño medio, empleando los instrumentos del análisis urbano para la identificación de los proyectos –básicamente urbano residenciales- que propendieron a la configuración de una ciudad de partes. Arica, constituyó entre los años cincuenta y setenta, un laboratorio particular en el que se caracterizó esta relación entre arquitectura y ciudad de manera excepcional. Se presentan así los crecimientos de la planta urbana, y el análisis de una serie de proyectos de vivienda que propusieron el crecimiento expansivo, en directa relación con las lógicas internas a cada porción o parte y una lectura interpretativa del tejido, en correlación con los planes que trataron de controlar el desarrollo urbano.The paper present the different configurations of the urban development growth of a medium-sized city, using the instruments of urban analysis for the identification of the projects -basically urban residential- that favored the configuration of a city of parts. Arica, between the fifties and seventies, became a privileged urban laboratory that characterized the city by the relationship between architecture and urban form in an exceptional way. The paper shows the growth of the urban plant, and the analysis of a series of housing projects that proposed expansive growth, in a direct relationship with the internal logics and an interpretive reading of the fabric, in correlation with the plans implemented to control the urban development.Peer Reviewe

Relaciones entre patrimonio y territorio

Las relaciones entre patrimonio arquitectónico y territorio no son frecuentes. La ampliación de la consideración patrimonial al territorio y al paisaje se ha incrementado en los últimos años. Así muchos territorios se reconocen hoy como patrimonio porque de alguna manera se configuran por la existencia en su ámbito de situaciones u objetos considerados patrimonio. La relación entre arquitectura y patrimonio se pone en evidencia en la lectura de las extensiones territoriales por la vigencia de una cierta densidad de arquitecturas patrimoniales y relaciones históricas, pero también paisajísticas. La repetición de signos patrimoniales semejantes hace que el lugar donde ello se produce pueda ser objeto de lectura patrimonial en tanto territorio.Pero también es necesario que esas arquitecturas tengan un grado de definición en relación con el lugar para ser consideradas bajo la categoría de patrimoniales. Es decir, debe ser posible leer en la propia arquitectura alguna serie de rasgos que permitan entender que las obras fueron concebidas en una relación particular con el sitio o con su emplazamiento. Ese puede ser el caso del territorio de Chiloé, donde la densidad y repetición de ejemplares de templos de la escuela chilota habilita su consideración; pero también es en las propias iglesias que se puede leer su relación con el sitio, a través de la torre, del pórtico, del emplazamiento y su relación con el borde mar.Esta condición del patrimonio también puede surgir de una intervención que pretendidamente haya asumido ambas escalas. Es decir que la acción sobre el territorio rural y urbano pueda ser entendida desde un punto de vista arquitectónico. Este ha sido el caso del Plan Serena.

La arquitectura moderna en la producción de la gran ciudad : Chile 1930-1970

En Chile la arquitectura moderna estuvo directamente asociada a la producción del fenómeno urbano durante el siglo xx, y dio forma a la ciudad incluso más allá del espacio construido, reflejando las condiciones de un nuevo estado de situación social y promoviendo nuevas formas de vida posibilitadas por el desarrollo técnico, económico y material. Se propone aquí una revisión de los aportes de la arquitectura moderna a la construcción de la dinámica urbana propia de la gran ciudad, por medio de categorías conceptuales trazadas a partir de la comprensión de las principales obras del patrimonio moderno del país. Las categorías propuestas abarcan tanto a los edificios propios del capital inmobiliario, en directa relación con la construcción de la gran ciudad moderna, como también a los equipamientos que acompañaron el desarrollo de las ciudades a lo largo del país, la reconstrucción de las ciudades que siguió a los terremotos, la promoción del territorio a través de desarrollos económicos, las acciones particulares que promovieron actividades económicas específicas y las acciones de vivienda pública