New Chilean Architecture

By Michael Webb - 2 April 2012

There are no blobs or parametric follies in Chile or, if there are, they are well hidden. Established and fledgling firms have stayed loyal to the fundamentals of modernism, and to the traditional virtues of firmness, commodity, and delight. In a global culture that craves novelty and extols form for its own sake, Chile has stayed true to itself. In the affluent suburbs of Santiago and the fashionable beach settlements of Cachagua and Zapallar, the hills and coastline are studded with white cubist villas. Most of the public, commercial, and institutional buildings are equally rational and restrained. And yet, thanks to a deep-rooted design culture, many of these sober structures are varied in subtle ways, and reward close examination. Chile is no longer as cut off from the rest of the world as it once was by the barriers of the Andes, the Pacific and a vast northern desert, as well as its remoteness from other centers of population. A prosperous middle class travels widely, and architects are constantly flying off to study, teach, or build abroad. There’s a strong European influence and foreigners are investing and building here. But Chile remains an edge country - like Portugal, Finland, and Japan - that preserves a distinct identity in an increasingly homogenized world. It is highly centralized. Seventeen million people inhabit a narrow strip of land that is 4300 km long, but a third of those live at the mid point, in and around Santiago. Most of the leading architects were educated at Pontifical Catholic University (PUC) in the capital, and many live and work in its shadow. Though the power of the catholic church is waning, this is still a conservative country. The revolutionary impulses that Allende sparked and the brutal military dictatorship that followed were aberrations in the history of a country that has traditionally preferred the democratic middle ground, in contrast to its volatile neighbors. As a backwater of the Spanish Empire that achieved...