Proyecto Parque Las Américas. / Parque Las Américas project.
Nature and landscape He became fond of mountain climbing when it was still an adventure. From the hilltops he achieved a vision of the land, his beloved country: pure geography, pure landscape. A sole descent on wooden skis from the summit of El Colorado hill rewarded a full day of climbing and fatigue. In frequent excursions by train to the Maipo River canyon, with a numerous group of young people he searched for the magic of the mountain. He discovered hidden lakes in the south with another tireless explorer, Emilio Duhart: his father’s house in Cañete was the starting point for remote destinations. The peasant, opening ditches with a shovel, made him think of the bittersweet encounter between the opposing cultures of the Native Americans and the Spanish. The simple rural house is for him a permanent reference. Everything is present in its elemental, simple and pure form. Especially the grape arbor, providing shade in the summer, fruits in autumn and shedding its foliage to let the winter sun in. He always wanted to have one, so he built them in his houses on El Vergel Street (1945), Oviedo (1954) and also at Cerro San Luis (1980), and in all of them the arbor was the center of family life during the summer. The grape arbor is therefore a frequent element in many of his residential works. The landscape became such a meaningful issue for him that he eagerly sought ways to introduce its study in the School of Architecture. He established a relationship with the University of Berkeley, California, whose latitude and climate are symmetrical with those in central Chile, and their landscapes are equivalent. With the support of Esmée Cromie, an English landscape designer married to architect Jaime Bellalta, he tried to formally establish the discipline, finally realized much later through the Landscape Architecture Postgraduate Degree, in which many currently practicing professionals were formed (the program was eventually canceled). “The ugliness of Santiago has become a common opinion. Those who believe this forget its wonderful geographical location”, he writes. He then refers to the urban tree, another permanent concern: “A rich and extensive tree planting campaign would improve environmental quality ... while at the same time the
generous beauty of trees given to everyone would raise the dignity of citizens and encourage their affection for the city.” In his architecture the landscape and trees will always be fundamental. In his defense of the landscape he undertakes epic crusades such as the protection of the elderly Carolinian poplars lining the access to Santiago from the Valparaiso highway, and more importantly, his defense of the banks of the Mapocho River as an urban park. The meaning of his travels He was an avid traveler, always capable of wonderment. In his frequent travels in Chile he was as curious as a tourist, peeking and searching in every corner for the unknown and the familiar. In 1947 he visited Cuzco and Machu Picchu. In 1952 he attended a conference in Mexico. In both places, using his own words, he recognized himself in both the mestizo and colonial cultures. In Europe he traveled with devotion through the remains of the architecture of the past. He was marked by the Greek classics in Paestum. The Renaissance moved him in Italy, as well as the Gothic and the serenity of the Romanesque. He admired the discrete solemnity of English neoclassicism and the ability of France and England to manage large-scale landscapes in the 17th century. The encounter with the work of Le Corbusier was obviously an unforgettable episode. But he also experienced the simple, hidden and magical places of the vernacular architecture filled with great humanity in all the places he visited in America, Europe and Asia (“In Europe I felt love for each country”, he says1). He was invited by the prestigious MIT in Boston to lead a workshop. He also received an invitation to develop a course at the Architectural Association in London. A trip to the Pumalín Park in Patagonia, hitchhiking with two of his grandchildren, was perhaps the last of his adventures. By then he was 90 years old.
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