Santiago: The Latest Architecture and News

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Testimonial Spaces, the theme of Chile's pavilion at the recent Venice Biennial 2021, opened to the public on the 18th of January at Santiago's Museum of Contemporary Art.

Curated by architects Emilio Marín and Rodrigo Sepúlveda, Testimonial Spaces brings together 525 paintings based on testimonies and everyday stories from the José María Caro neighbourhood in Santiago, in line with "How will we live together?", the theme of the biennial curated by Lebanese architect Hashim Sarkis.

For the Cosmos Foundation, environmental conscience, ecological conservation, and community focus form the foundations of land planning and landscape design within public infrastructure projects. We sat down with the foundation's project director, Felipe Correa, as well as foundation architects Valentina Schmidt and Consuelo Roldán, as they went in depth on the benefits, objectives, and motivations behind the Healing Gardens initiative.

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An inflatable and soft body—a silver balloon—scatters towards the sidewalk in the heart of Santiago, Chile. People walk by touching the strange artifact, curiously looking at the object moving over the public space. Behind the pillow, the Gabriela Mistral Gallery disappears.

Foster + Partners revealed its design for a masterplan focusing on adaptive reuse and programmatic diversity meant to regenerate the site of a mid-century factory in the heart of Santiago. The practice's first project in Chile proposes the refurbishment of the existing factory building, La Fabrica, while adding a residential development on the adjacent site and introducing timber as a sustainable building material for the extensions.

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The Unidad Vecinal Providencia (Providencia Neighborhood Unit) is one of the many residential complexes generated in Chile as a result of a housing and urban development public policy promoted through the CORVI (Housing Corporation) between 1953 and 1973.

Commissioned by the Caja de Empleados Particulares (Private Employees Fund) to be built on a site where previously the National Children's House was based, the Unidad Vecinal Providencia was designed as a complex capable of becoming an urban piece, promoting spatial integration and social cohesion in Santiago.

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Rumor had it that behind the walls of historic subway station Cal y Canto in Santiago de Chile, a hidden ghost station would eventually link to Line 3—a planned route that was part of the original Metro master plan designed in the 60s. Its construction would have been shelved after the magnitude-7.8 1985 earthquake that forced public resources to be redirected for the reconstruction of the Chilean central valley.

34 years later, the Cal y Canto Metro station finally opened its connection with Line 3, the most recent addition to the rapid transit system, thus becoming the seventh line of Santiago after lines 1, 2, 4, 4A, 5, and 6.

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The panel of judges overseeing the design contest for Parque Observatorio Cerro Calán in Santiago (Chile) publicized their final decision on January 28, naming Chilean firm Jadue-Livingstone as the winner out of the five finalists.

Organized by the Las Condes Municipality in collaboration with the University of Chile and the Cerros Isla Foundation, the contest aimed to find the best architectural and landscape design for an upcoming park in Santiago, Chile: the Parque Observatorio Cerro Calán, a 45 hectare space to be built around the already existing Observatorio Astronómico Nacional.

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The shortlist for the design of a 111-acres observatory urban park covering the Calan Hill in Santiago, Chile, has been officially released by a jury of experts.

Organized by the Municipality of Las Condes in collaboration with the University of Chile and the Cerros Isla Foundation, the competition seeks to choose the best architecture and landscape proposal for the design of a new urban natural park in Santiago: the Cerro Calan Observatory Urban Park (Parque Observatorio Cerro Calán)

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The team led by Chilean architect Cristián Fernández has won the National Architecture and Landscaping Competition for the New Museum of Santiago (NUMU, Nuevo Museo de Santiago), a cultural project that will house the Fundacion Engel art collection in the Bicentennial Park in Santiago, Chile.

The Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor, has just announced the appointment of Alejandro Aravena as Chair of the Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury as of March 2021, in time for the award’s 43rd year. Moreover, the announcement also designated Manuela Lucá-Dazio, the Executive Director of the Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, as an advisor to the Prize and the next Executive Director.

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