Gradually, housing legislation established a complex set of regulations and institutions whose functions overlapped. From the second half of the twentieth century onwards, crucial modifications were made to land-use planning management. The creation of the Chilean Chamber of Construc- tion in 1950 meant that the State once again understood building housing as an opportunity to promote productive development. In 1953, the Housing Corporation was created and the General Law of Urbanism and Construction was enacted. In 1959, DFL 2 was issued as the starting point for the 1960 National Housing Program, which provided a reorientation for the savings funds and proposed the construction of 538,700 housing units during the 1960s, and in 1965, these successive reforms were consolidated through the creation of the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism. This second stage of housing development was the main political discourse with a differentiated strategy to provide solutions for different social strata and integrate them into larger-scale architectural and urban projects in the form of neighborhood units. Hence, apartment blocks and high-rise towers were built on an incentive to private capital using tax exemptions in order to count on the participation of companies and real estate developers. Three examples of this are the cases of Villa Frei by architects Osvaldo Larraín, Jaime Larraín, and Diego Balmaceda 12 , built around 1965; the 1010 Collectives from Walterio González and Sergio Moreno and 1020 from Jaime Perelman and Orlando Sepúlveda, built in the 60's and 70's; and the KPD housing blocks manufactured from 1972 to the end of that decade. Sector 1 of Villa Frei is a system of 39 buildings distributed across 31 blocks, four towers with different types of apartments, and a block of commercial premises. According to its classification as a National Mon- ument in the Typical Zone Category (2015), its ascription of value is to be representative of the state housing policies that were implemented through CORVI and the private employee funds (EMPART) and, at the same time, it is a representative complex of middle-class housing with high-quality construction standards, combined with large recreational areas. Attributes that stand out are the buildings' location and configura- tion, the modular distribution, the apartments' typological diversity and amenities, the buildings' height and volume, the balconies, the stairways, the exterior walkways, the materials, and the exterior cladding. Regarding the case of Collectives 1010 and 1020, they are organized as four-story social housing blocks, with a variable number of units and configurations, depending on the size of the site. Concerning heritage value description, it is a housing typology adaptable to different territorial conditions; it represents a distinguishable model of urban expansion and is an example of housing efficiency and massification from the public sphere. Its attributes are the use of varied spatial configurations, the housing solution in height with symmetrical facades, its building efficiency in the use of shared walls, and the rationalization in the common use of structural systems, insulating materials, and air conditioning systems. The good relations and initiatives of President Salvador Allende, after the 1971 earthquake, led to the donation of a prefabricated reinforced concrete panel factory from the Soviet Union, a construction system known as KPD. This industrially efficient construction system allowed the panels to be moved and assembled in a fraction of the time 13 compared to other typologies used at that time. The factory produced panels until the end of the 1970s, building 153 blocks distributed in the cities of Viña del Mar, Quilpué, and Santiago. Its importance constitutes a singular example of serial construction in Chile, adapting a global prefabrication system to the national reality. The emblematic object of this process is a panel signed by Allende that is part of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights collection. This re-signified vestige was thanks to the research of Pedro Alonso and Hugo Palmarola and was the main Chilean exhibition
PROLEGOMENA FOR A GLOBAL HISTORY OF LARGE REINFORCED CONCRETE PANEL SYSTEMS Mauricio Sánchez An architect from Universidad Católica, with a Master's degree in Architectural Restoration from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He is head of the Project Management Department at the Cultural Heritage Undersecretary Office. He is also an Associate Professor at the UC School of Architecture. Santiago Canales An architect with a Master's degree in Architecture from Universidad Católica, he works as an architect in the Project Management Department at the Cultural Heritage Undersecretary's Office and is a member of the Heritage and Modernity Cluster from the UC Cultural Heritage Center. theme at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale 2014 and is perhaps one of the clearest examples of housing as an ambitious public discourse. This politically frustrating case is a representative element of the link between political decisions and the development of the nation with an emphasis on the population's social welfare. However, it differs from the previous cases by proposing that the State was the decision-maker and executor of the housing challenge. All these housing complexes in turn fostered the development of the cement industry, structures and metal parts, and the mass production of roofing, wall cladding, and other sanitation and comfort elements. Thus, factories such as Cementos Melón (1908), Compañía de Acero del Pacifico, CAP (1946), Sociedad Industrial Pizarreño (1935) or Maderas Aglomeradas Ltda., and Masisa (1960), formed a key sector for the country's economy. The link between productive development and political management was as strong as the relationship between the private sector's production of building materials and the construction of high-density housing. This modus operandi of state action in the second half of the 20th century was nourished by an ambitious public discourse determined by interventions based on the capacity and resources available to connect and consolidate the various geopolitical enclaves of the country. For the State's action to have a strong impact, far-reaching objectives seem to be fundamental, and standardization (of policies and material solutions) tends to be a useful tool in this regard. In that period, the increase in productivity levels strengthened the need for the development of other types of initia- tives that also had standardization and an ambitious plan as components. Examples of this are the creation of Industria Azucarera Nacional S.A.IANSA, (1953); Empresa de Comercio Agrícola, ECA, 1960; the construction of Route 5 (1969), and the Santiago Metro (1975) just referring to the connectivity and food industry areas. Like housing, these projects are part of govern- ment actions where prototyping and standardization created a system of technical, social, and spatial devices and relationships giving symbolism and meaning to our built environment. These signs of progress were the structure of national development and political discourses. Reviewing the significance of housing solutions allows us to identify the value of state action as having symbolic and representative estimates in terms of the consolidation and urban expansion strategies of our cit- ies. The development of the national industry and its role in executing housing have indirectly created a series of values and heritage attributes worthy of being taken into consideration. !
By: Pedro Ignacio Alonso + Hugo Palmarola
Almost like a Piranesian scene, weeds grow around a 2.6-ton reinforced concrete panel that we found in 2009.¹ Today, it is abandoned and in ruins, it lies on what was once an industrial site in Quilpué, Chile. After examining it in detail, we concluded that it is a facade panel with joints belonging to the French Camus system to prefabricate housing, patent- ed by Raymond Camus in 1948 and later exported to many countries.
12 Protected as a Typical Zone by decree N°517/ 2015. 13 Estimated lead-time of 16 days per block that contained 16 apartments distributed over four stories.
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