We calculated that if we managed to collect, for example, 20 liters per second of hot thermal water, we could fill 1,700 m2 of pools 1 meter deep. Due to the land´s slope, it was not possible to make a single well, so we decided to separate the pools and give them a maximum of 10 meters in length so that the reinforced concrete retaining walls would have a maximum height of 1.50 meters above the Aihué estuary. Then on a trip to the island of Naxos in Greece, I saw a trail map with mysterious "geometric tombs" on it. After walking for a long time through stone-filled hills, I could find no sign of the tombs. I was about to turn back, when a series of perfect circles appeared on the ground, about 6 meters in diameter each, built with vertical marble slabs that stood out for their strict geometric arrangement among the natural stones of the area. Human labor always has an intention that is reflected in a shape that is not confused with nature. Unless someone like Walt Disney intends to imitate it. At that moment, I knew that the way to make the pools in these new hot springs was not by trying to replicate the estuary pools in nature, as we did in Puritama, but by giving them geometrical shapes. The hot water available at 65 degrees Celsius allowed us to design 17 pools. We built them out of reinforced concrete lined with local flagstone. And we attached them to the
rock walls scattered along the 500 meters of the ravine. In this way, only three of the four sides of each pool had to be built, and the center area was left clear so that the water from the estuary would be distributed over its entire width. Thus, it produces a pleasant noise that muffles children's screams and conversations and provides privacy. Above the estuary, there is a zigzagging wooden walkway made of coigüe that leads to the pools, bathrooms, terraces, and dressing rooms. The path had to have no more than a 12 percent slope to make it safe for people to move around, and the only way to achieve this was with a zigzagging walkway with elevated handrails. The pools drain over the upper edge to keep the water still and clean, and to achieve a mirror effect that visually duplicates them. To build the hot springs we used local materials. The neighboring communities provided us with coigües, flagstones, firewood, almost everything. It would have been cheaper and easier for us to buy impregnated pine and Brazilian flagstone in a hardware store. Architecture is charismatic and permeates with the attitude with which it is made. Hot springs are a place of leisure, almost ritual. The coigüe wood is not visible under the walkways' red paint, but it is there. We gave importance to the invisible. A building made for business purposes conveys a business atmosphere. That intention is impregnated and is evident to everyone. Today it is believed that things only exist if they are shown if I take a picture and post it on social networks. However, things are where they matter, even if they are not seen or shouted. There is only beauty in gratitude. In that part of reality that apparently serves no purpose. I mean, for beauty to appear, you have to do a little more than what is necessary to make a living, and "get by" as Catalan friends say. To appreciate a culture you have to surround yourself with its works and its way of understanding the world. The Mapuches have a very abstract culture, and that inspired us to avoid anything figurative in the hot springs. It is difficult to value and admire what is not known. When I was a child, nobody told me about the Atacameños, the Chinchorro mummies, that the Mapuche culture is one of the most abstract in the world... You have to know this legacy to take advantage of it. And it is not about speaking Mapudungun, it is about understanding the pre-Columbian way of facing the world. An Araucanian does not have to sleep in a ruca today. Their way of life is open to change because they are still gatherers. Yet they have nothing to gather but pehuenes. Their values are maintained. They have no money. And I would never honor my grandfather by wearing his old hat, but I would buy a new one as he would have done. / Nota del editor: En 2002, la prestigiosa revista internacional Arquitectura Viva dedicó un número monográfico a Chile y su portada fue el hotel Explora en Atacama. La publicación seleccionó dos proyectos de Germán del Sol: el hotel Explora y las Termas de Puritama, poniendo en valor el paisaje chileno y el cómo esta nueva arquitectura conversaba con su territorio y su cultura local. Así mismo, Architectural Review publicó en su portada el hotel Explora en Atacama. Note from the editor: In 2002, the prestigious international magazine "Arquitectura Viva" dedicated a monographic issue to Chile and its cover was the Explora Hotel in the Atacama. The publication selected two projects by Germán del Sol: the Explora Hotel and the Puritama Hot Springs, highlighting the Chilean landscape and how this new architecture converses with its territory and local culture. The international magazine Architectural Review also published the Atacama Explora Hotel on its cover.
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Reportaje / Feature Article
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