From poetry to experimentation: The hospedería del errante in ciudad abierta (Quintero, Chile)

Abstract

The Ciudad Abierta project, developed by the Amereida Cultural Corporation in Valparaiso (Chile), was created as a physical space which had a place for experimentation, learning and life from the experience of poetry and architecture. The faculty of the School of Architecture and Design of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso formed a corporation, whose members developed their personal and professional lives in this same space in which they undertook their work. From the Sixties, a series of constructions were being developed here, that went beyond the pure fact of design, to combine within itself a discourse which, starting from a poetic document on the place, ended up bringing to life an element that was much more that architecture, since it could range from the assembly of a scenography to sculpture or poetry. One of these works would be the so-called Hospedería del Errante, a construction that, from its beginning, would attempt to encapsulate all the techniques from the world of aeronautical and naval engineering, by means of an important project based on the Amereida. With access to the unpublished sources of the José Vial Armstrong archive, and the archive of the School of Architecture and Design, the article reviews the genesis and the development of this project, which was able to combine an important educational and experimental exercise, under the poetic context that has characterised the whole development of this unique school.