Post from Santiago Chile

Santiago Diary

22 November 2012

I’ve been in Santiago, Chile for a little under two weeks now and have not stopped. It is intoxicating.

Last night we went on the second of the bicycle rides organized in as many weeks by Bicipaseao Partrimoniales facebook.com/bicipaseospatrimoniales. We started at 8.00 pm and didn't bet home until after 1.00 pm. The tour visited four museums that were open to the public until midnight! At each we had a speaker and in between we cycled across Santiago through the lanes and streets, shutting down traffic wherever we crossed a road as there were about 150 of us on bikes - all ages, some kids, some dogs, some bicycles with little trailers with kids in them. The museums we visited were impressive not only for the architecture but the content and the formation of the institutions themselves.

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BASHOURA cemetery's airspace

By Sandra Rishani

Beirut maps highlighting cemetery location by an outline: Map1 1876 - Map2 1919- Map3 1964- Map4 1994- Map5 2011

Bashoura's built space to open air ratio is one of the least shocking in relationship to Beirut's other neighborhoods. This is mainly attributed to the large historic cemetery that creates a breathing space in the middle of the dense neighborhood. Yet when the cemetery was planned it was surrounded by plantations; today it is surrounded by apartment buildings. The cemeteries location today actually allows the neighborhood fresh air, ventilation space, and direct sunlight.

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Parque Cultural Valparaíso a tres meses del estreno: Obra, Cultura y Gestión pública

Note by Architects for Peace: This article was originally published at Plataforma Patrimonio and it has been re-published with the consent of its author Alberto Texido. The article, entitled Cultural Park Valparaiso (Chile), discusses the conversion of a former jail and its surroundings (listed as cultural heritage) into a complex for cultural manifestations--workshops and installations. This project puts an end to 150 years of abandonment and deterioration and provides the city with a new cultural space of a scale that Valparaiso had not seen before.

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Por Alberto Texido

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Re-cap: Impromptu-2: Sabbagh Architects, Recent Projects

Juan Pedro Sabbagh became partner of Sabbagh Architects in 2001. Opened in 1984, Sabbagh Architects is today one of the most influential architectural practices in Chile. The typology of their architectural work covers industrial, commercial, housing, educational and heritage projects.

Sabbagh Architects is one of the most influential architectural offices in Chile, not only because of the 1.5million sqm of architecture they’ve constructed, but also because of the quality of their architectural language. The magic began with Juan Sabbagh, founder of the office and national architectural prize-winner, through his definitive architecture and academic teachings at the University of Chile.

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