Archinect - News

Foster + Partners reveals master plan La Fabrica, its first-ever project in Chile

2021-09-15T14:53:00-04:00

A refurbished old factory building in the heart of Santiago will become the site of Foster + Partners' first Chilean project, according to renderings released by the firm yesterday.

The newly unveiled La Fabrica master plan takes the former textile factory as its centerpiece and expands to an adjacent site featuring a 550-unit, primarily timber residential complex that will be, in terms of material, the first-of-its-kind in the region, according to the architect.

Foster + Partners first extended the shopping mall that currently occupies the factory building and then added various diverse programmatic elements like low-rise offices, medical and entertainment facilities, and restaurants which are connected via a series of pedestrian walkways originating from the centerpiece.

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

The mixed-used site then flows seamlessly into the high-density residential development, which is anchored by an orthogonal square and also features street-level retail and dining ...

Chile's local hero: Michael Kimmelman profiles Alejandro Aravena

2016-05-23T12:59:00-04:00

Aravena polished off his beer when a stranger sidled up to the table. It happens all the time now. Drivers in passing cars stop him in the street. Shop clerks, politicians, long-lost acquaintances and schoolteachers ask for selfies with him. They all say the same thing. “Thank you,” the stranger said to Aravena, who smiled and posed arm in arm with the man for a picture. Thank you — as if the Pritzker prize...had been awarded on behalf of everybody in Chile.

Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for the New York Times, profiles Alejandro Aravena's projects in his native Chile, on the cusp of this year's Venice Biennale opening (which Aravena is also directing). The profile largely focuses on Aravena's social practice, and its attempts at coordinating efforts among the Chilean government, construction companies and actual citizens – most prominently, after the 2010 earthquake in Constitución.

For a comparative take on Aravena, from before he won the Pritzker or was named director of the 2016 Venice Biennale, check out Carolina A. Miranda's (art critic for the Los Angeles Times) piece profiling Chile's emerging group of promising and talented architects.

For more on Aravena and the Chilean architecture scene:

Snapshots of Cristián Undurraga's Alberto Hurtado memorial museum

2015-03-24T15:18:00-04:00

In 2010, a sanctuary in Santiago was completed in [Hurtado's] honor — at the very site where he founded the Hogar de Cristo back in the 1940s. The building was designed by Chilean architect Cristián Undurraga, of Undurraga Devés Arquitectos, and it is elegant and serene — a true space of contemplation. It also makes the most of simple materials: rough Béton brut concrete, glass blocks and blond wood ceilings that don't overwhelm the artifacts on display...

Calming photos of the Santiago-based memorial museum, which Chilean architect Cristián Undurraga designed in honor of Jesuit priest Father Alberto Hurtado and his humanitarian work.

Unfolding southamerican utopias: the Clip/Stamp/Fold in Santiago.

2013-06-25T14:35:00-04:00

Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X – 197X takes stock of seventy little magazines from this period, which were published in over a dozen cities. Coined in the early twentieth century to designate progressive literary journals, the term “little magazine” was remobilized during the 1960s to grapple with the contemporary proliferation of independent architectural periodicals.

This month the boundary has been finally crossed. It is because the exhibition and ongoing research project Clip/Stamp/Fold has landed in the south hemisphere by this month until July 2013. Santiago has had the chance for this first landing. The local version of the project became real due to the remarkable work of Fernando Portal, Pablo Brugnoli and Andrea Lathrop, whom gave shape to the Chilean participation on the architectural radical magazines of the 60’s and 70’s.

The selected local magazines were proposed according to the main outline: “radical architecture of little magazines”. In this regard, AUCA was immediately considered as one of the first ones due to its invaluable role as one of the bravest publication according to the social impact in the hard days Chile was facing. Architecture, Urbanism, Construction and Arts configure its name as well as the matching with the aboriginal (mapuche) word, which means Rebel. Also AUCA bore a respectable name because it born in t...

Chilean Skyscraper Overshadows The City

2013-01-07T00:30:00-05:00

The skyline of Chile’s capital city, Santiago, has a new addition with the Gran Torre skyscraper casting a two-kilometre shadow across the historic city. The 70-storey residential building stands more than 300 metres tall, making it the tallest building in South America. The five-ton steel structure cost an estimated one billion dollars to build and tenants are expected to move into the building next March.

Hip Cities That Think About How They Work

2011-11-23T11:46:07-05:00

This survey is not based solely on quality of life, number of trees or the cost of a month’s rent. Instead, we examine some cities that aim to be both smart and well managed, yet have an undeniably hip vibe. Our pick of cities that are, in a phrase, both great and good...

The NYT selects Auckland, Berlin, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Curitiba, Santiago, Shanghai and Vilnius as the hippest cities for young professionals.