Place antrophology on Villa Grimaldi: public space and symbolic plurality in Chilean urban landscape

Abstract

Villa Grimaldi, located in the metropolitan area of Santiago de Chile, comprises an area of approximately 10,200 m², which, at the beginning of the 20th century, served as a meeting place for artists and intellectuals, where discussions on the various areas of Chilean and world culture were held. After the military coup of 1973, this space housed the largest detention center of torture under the Chilean military regime. During the democratic “Concertación” period, after years of neglect, the area was turned into Corporación Parque por la Paz Villa Grimaldi. In 2004, the area was declared a National Monument, looking back at the period in which the village was used by the military and paying tribute to those who resisted the Chilean dictatorship. In view of the place’s paradoxical uses, this article seeks to establish the relations between the configuration of this collective space, its real and symbolic meanings and its integration in the urban fabric during each or the historical periods investigated in the research. The methodology consisted of a qualitative research of both the literature and the documents collected in the city of Santiago in the years 2014 and 2015. Through the theoretical contributions of authors such as Marc Augé, Lineu Castello and Norberg-Schulz, this article intends to establish a dialogic sense of public space in its different spectrum of use and architectural/urban sense to consolidate its inclusion (or not) in the city.