Supported

Archi GOING UNDERGROUND IN SANTIAGO

The city of Santiago has undergone incessant transformation in the last

twenty years. However, perhaps the most noticeable and unexpected
change has been its surrounding geography. The magnificent
mountains, the Andes that until only fifteen years ago were perpetually
covered in snow and ice cap glaciers, lay bare in today’s summers as a
reminder of our recklessness.

While many of the urban transformations follow on a relatively stable

trajectory of modernisation and improvement of the social conditions,
this course was interrupted during the period of the Pinochet’s dictator- 7 pm Thursday 6 March 2008
ship. The dictatorship’s rejection of urban planning, in favour of the RMIT BUILDING 50 (Orr Street, off Victoria Street)
ideology of the ‘free market’ and left a damaging legacy of urban
sprawl and inequity. This has presented a challenge to the governments Gold coin donation
of the last twenty years. In redressing the urban ills, these governments
have placed society, culture and sustainable ‘quality of life’ above all
other concerns.

To promote a transformation of its city dwellers into more compassion-

ate citizens. To recover its regional identity, on the basis of a cultural
diversity, sustainable growth and advancement in the construction of a
better place to live. To develop and find better uses for its infrastructure
and technology, while promoting access to opportunities that strengthen
a commitment to economic, social and environmental sustainability. All
these articulated by the authorities in local, regional, provincial and in
Santiago, Santiago as a region of the world. (Government of Chile, About Beatriz C. Maturana
2000: 12)1
(B.Arch M.Urb.Des.)
Chile has the strongest economy in the South of the continent, and the Architects for Peace president and founder
largest middle class in South and Central America. Santiago, the capital
has a population of approximately 5 million inhabitants. Although it is Born in Santiago, Chile, her studies in
fast and hectic, it is not a particularly harsh place, less so to those used to architecture were curtailed in the early
the large cities of Europe. Santiago has for the last century grown eighties due to the political situation in her
sideways, upwards and in the last decade grown increasingly country. Beatriz completed her architec-
underground. The extensions to the Metro (the underground) continue tural degree at RMIT, Australia in 1992 and
to expand reaching each corner of the city, the city centre rests above
a Masters of Urban Design at the University
many of inconspicuous underground carparks and a new museum has
also gone underground. of Melbourne where she is currently a PhD
candidate focusing on architectural educa-
This presentation will show some projects that illustrate how Santiago tion. She runs her own practice and teaches
deals with the issue of densification and pedestrianisation of the city. The at RMIT and the University of Melbourne.
three projects are the extension of the Metro lines, the new library in the Beatriz founded Architects for Peace in
Faculty of Architecture (PUC), and the Centro Cultural Palacio de La 2003 in response to the silence around the
Moneda. The presentation is based on a series of observations collected unjustifiable war on Iraq.
over three weeks of walking the city.

1 Jonathan R. Barton, "Sustentabilidad Urbana Como Planificación Estratégica,"

Revista EURE 32, no. 96 (2006).
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