Unknowns of modern Architecture in Southern Chile: the color revolution

Abstract

The development of modern architecture in Latin America, and particularly in Chile, raises unknowns that are far from being resolved. However, during the great flow of research, publications and studies on the subject, it is possible to glimpse new perspectives that would contribute to a broader and deeper understanding of the phenomenon that completely marked the development of architecture and the city in the 20th century.

This text investigates an aspect that, from our perspective, has not been sufficiently studied in the development of architecture in the last century in Chile: color in modern architecture. Questions like: What is the role of color in modern architecture? How does color manifest itself in the various stages of development of said architecture? they have not yet been sufficiently addressed and even less answered. We consider that these questions are necessary, since we note, as a hypothesis, that the First Modernity in Chile (1930s and 1940s) is of fundamentally monochrome architecture, and the Second Modernity (1950s and 1960s) is polychromatic. This phenomenon, which completely transformed the expression of modern work, we have called "the color revolution".