The Evangelic temple, between an endogenous context and exogenous influence. The case of the Methodist Pentecostal Temple in Cerro Larraín, Valparaíso

Abstract

This text approaches the study of non-Catholic religious architectonic operations in Chile. Taking as an example the temple in Cerro Larraín, Valparaíso, it seeks to provide a new understanding of the influences that established the Evangelic temple of the Chilean Pentecostal movement, which features strong elements of environmental sustainability, economic rationality and concern for the urban context. An interpretation analysis of original drawings and images was conducted, along with a study of the built surroundings and a desk review of Protestant temples in United States and Europe. By attempting to reveal elements of a combined influence by the physical environment, the historical and social context and national and international Protestantism in the conception of the Evangelic temple during the first quarter of the twentieth century, this architecture was discovered to reveal a residential understanding of the religious building, a strong United States Evangelic influence in spite of a very local conception and a Domus Eclesiae-type idea of the space, particularly Protestant.