Modern architecture in Chile. The case of the Consistorial Palace of Valdivia, by Angela Schweitzer

Abstract

Does modern Chilean architecture exist? What works are part of it? For Montaner (1999), in countries like Chile, modern architecture began to develop in the 1930s and 1940s, from the teaching of architects who studied in Europe or the United States. In the Chilean case, he mentions the architect Emilio Duhart and we can also add Roberto Dávila Carson. For the author, in modern Latin American works it is possible to notice a marked influence of the most monumentalist Le Corbusier with a brutalist use of concrete; and to a lesser extent, the teachings of Gropius, van der Rohe, Wright, and Aalto. However, in them the search for an interpretation of the rationalist language is present. In accordance with this, in this article it is proposed that the Palacio Consistorial de Valdivia is an example of modern Chilean architecture and Angela Schweitzer, its author, one of the first modern architects in the country.