Héctor Mardónes Restat.
Scarce historical research has been developed in Chile on the process of transformation of the architecture of the first decades of the 20th century, and it has tended to build a simplistic interpretation of modern architecture as an uncritical import of foreign models (mostly from Europe), without a thorough study of the particularities of the actors and the architecture produced in the context of Latin America in general and Chile in particular. Part of this interpretation is supported by the work of various architects, expressed in what Eliash and Moreno have designated as “parallel architectures”, consisting of works characterized by stylistic uncertainties, where some architects simultaneously designed projects in archaic and modern styles 1 . Under this vision, the modern character would not have been deeply rooted in the practices of local architects, but it would have been handled as “one more style”. This situation would operate in a structure of center-periphery, where Chilean architecture would contrast with a central place where modernity would be more “authentic”, i.e. generated by modern architects who did not design in a certain way because it was a formal style, but because it was the product of a vital commitment. In order to set up the context to discuss the figure of Mardones it is necessary to propose two points around which this interpretation can be undone. First, it is not correct to say that European architects were exclusively modern and there weren’t any “parallel architectures” as defined for our context by Eliash and Moreno. The emergence of modern architecture, both in Europe and in the rest of the world, was a process of research and adaptation, inspired by the awareness of the need for new sources after discarding those from earlier periods, but always drawing inspiration from these inherited roots. At the same time, the existence in a certain place of varied styles does not necessarily mean that the architectural production of that place was “less modern” than that of other places where that was less relevant.
Second, the cultural, social and economic context of Latin America may explain the relative slowness with which modern practices matured on this side of the Atlantic or, at least, may present to the historian clear differences between one context and the other (i.e., European and Latin American). This clarifies that treating the modernizing processes of each region by measuring them with the same stick has been a mistake that has hindered a more in-depth study of the development of modern architecture in Latin America 2 . In the Chilean case, this research process took place within the scope of a very small professional practice, normally associated with traditional elites that lived with their gaze directed towards European fashions. Between the 20s and 30s several new factors appeared that prompted a renewal of the bases on which local architecture was developed. These processes are closely related to relevant figures, which either from a more solitary position or as a part of what we might call a generation, played different roles in its development. These factors can be summed up in a strong professional drive to renew the practice of architecture; a quest for discovery of new technologies and new aesthetic standards and, finally, a public action for the promotion of new housing typologies and the construction of institutions of a centralized administration that had begun to establish its foundations of stability and which would boost a huge construction effort in search of an identity. The generation of architects that began to operate on the basis of these factors is the one born in the first decade of the 20th century: figures such as Sergio Larraín, Juan Martínez, Enrique Gebhard, Juan Borchers, Waldo Parraguez or Héctor Mardones, among many others, who surpassed those born at the end of the 19th century and under whose shadow they took their first steps as architects. In so far as they were able to establish their independent practices, all of them confirmed a commitment to those factors of regeneration, some in a more radical way -or more pure, if you will- than others.
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