The exhibition of the multitudinous cultural activities has been presented over time as a story in the history and local idiosyncrasy of each community, thus leaving a mark on the collective memory of the peoples.

According to the data provided by the Cultural Cartography of Chile (2012), the territorial distribution of artistic areas is mainly in the Metropolitan Region, encouraging creators, performers, producers, teachers and technicians to reside in the capital Santiago. Although the main funding for the disciplines of the visual, performing and musical arts is national, the major managers of these activities use the most populated city in the country as a great showcase.
The largest institutions as platforms for artistic expressions are museums, cultural centers, theaters, cinemas and galleries, among others, however, at present, urban artistic-cultural manifestations are promoted with a greater presence, with an incidence and triggering media much more ancient. City and population are part of its presentation, breaking the conventional scheme.
Today, organizations such as Homemade fest, Teatro a mil, Paris Parade, Fesiluz, to name a few, are encouraging the participation of artists in the city.

Understood that Santiago de Chile has the largest number of spectators, is this city prepared to gather a large number of people in public space? Does this place really exist? After mapping all the public spaces in Santiago, we only found parks that could gather a large number of people in an event, but that are damaged and are not suitable for this type of event, however, within the public spaces there is an axis pedestrian, which stands out for being one of the first streets of the Fundacional de Santiago, which Pedro de Valdivia also defined on the route of the Qhapaq Ñan or better known as the Inca Trail. Paseo Ahumada is the busiest pedestrian street in the country with approximately 1.5 million daily visits.

The Paseo Ahumada as a cultural exhibition support consists of three stages:

• Ground: The first operation is to define the Paseo Ahumada as a large esplanade to house great cultural proposals, for this the different pre-existing programs are reorganized to give greater continuity to the void, finally, a change is made in the treatment of the floor for a greater durability.
• Closure: (Palette and Grotto) The proposal includes five “pallets” as a support for cultural exhibition (stages) arranged along the Paseo. The Grotto is organized into three underground cavities that feed the main show (cellar, dressing rooms, bathrooms and multipurpose rooms). It also creates space for exhibitions that require some spatial control and greater privacy.
• Sky: Part of the rearrangement of the equipment is to redefine the lighting of the promenade, thus creating a blanket of luminaires that is arranged in the upper part of the buildings, thus generating a complete volume ofthe void and promoting greater safety in the sector.

The project was developed within the context of the Universidad San Sebastián (USS).

KOOZ What prompted the project?

FG The project was developed for my architecture thesis that I did in Santiago de Chile in 2019, which was also a participant in the VI Latin American Call for undergraduate projects by Trama magazine obtaining honorable mention, the project seeks to externalize different cultural aspects of the city, where without a doubt the main motivation was to show the absence of public spaces destined to host large-scale cultural exhibitions.

This idea was born by observing how different entities and artists appropriated the public space as the main stage, proposing a large showcase immersed in the city by considering passersby as part of the exhibition, it was not only a dynamic work capable of interacting with its observers, also generated criticism for those agoraphobic works that are only found in galleries and museums. Santiago de Chile is a city in constant growth, so the first thing that was done was to generate a mapping and a cadastre of those public spaces that included said multifunctionality in the city. The parks were those places that due to their size could congregate a large number of people but were really damaged. Then, within this investigation a particular public space was glimpsed, a pedestrian corridor located in the heart from the capital, the Paseo Ahumada, that created an opportunity by turning it into the busiest pedestrian promenade in the country in the first urban cultural exhibition stand.

Public space must modify its properties to ensure its development in today’s society and must continue to fulfill the role of meeting and recreation, however, many of these places are becoming obsolete and finally end up being urban ornaments, empty without purpose, without maintenance and obsolete by society. That is why the project asks us to question the type of spaces intended for leisure and recreation, it leaves the question open: Are these places made for today? Is this the only way to build gathering spaces? The possibilities are endless and there is no single answer, so the first step is to question the way we design these places.

KOOZ What questions does the project raise and what decisions does it address?

FG The main axiom of the proposal lies in identifying the absence of public spaces for large-scale cultural events. It also raises the mutation of public spaces as we know them, they are not only gardens, parks or hard squares, but they can differ in programs, forms and design strategies according to their locality and location. Part of this proposal is to question current public spaces and especially how they should mutate and prepare for the different changes that the city is facing today. The project questions the way in which we design these spaces, in the updating and renovation of these, where obsolete public policies are exposed by noting the little integration in the environment and the little complicity with the resident community. Another theme that the proposal reveals is the versatility that public places must have. These spaces must integrate into their design that permeable capacity that brings them closer to neighboring programs and the multiple users who make these spaces their own.

KOOZ How does the project address the role of cultural and artistic production in society?

FG The project covers the cultural exhibition in a holistic way, moves away from any particularity on formats or typologies, seeks through a support or platform the conquest of the artistic piece in the open air. In the midst of the contingency, the project manages to respond to the shortage of spaces in operation for the arts and culture, “El Paseo Ahumada as a cultural exhibition support” is based on externalizing the artistic pieces, bringing them closer to the spectators and compensate for the absence of these in a pandemic period. The role of the proposal in the face of cultural and artistic production is to generate an artificial showcase, delimited by a pedestrian corridor, by an urban axis and not by a room, a counterproposal to the digitization of artistic works or cultural events is to be able to exhibit them in streets where the pedestrian path is naturally interrupted by these facilities. The main objective of an artistic or cultural piece is its visibility in front of the community, a work blinded to the limit of the four walls will not surprise the expectant and curious gaze of the new generations.

KOOZ What informed the type and approach of the architectural intervention within the city?

FG I thought of the city observing it as a series of layers that overlap each other to form what we know today as a metropolis, distancing ourselves a bit from believing that “everything is built in the city”, the proposal was born out of a concern that gives the possibility of nourishing the city through generous intervention with pedestrians. The design of the project is unconventional and differs from its own formal qualities, it does not seek to possess a body as such or plastic limits to obtain an architectural object, but rather understands the pedestrian corridor as a great void delimited by the Plaza de Armas from Santiago and Av. Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins, where there is no possibility of creating a building as such due to the narrowness and containment of the buildings adjacent to the Street, Therefore, the strategy when designing was to deconstruct the program by generating a series of artifacts arranged in Paseo Ahumada. This urban support is formed by a series of scenographic steel structures that are arranged between the buildings in a suspended way, in this way it does not alter or intervene in the daily flow of passersby.

KOOZ How and to what extent has the contemporary pandemic affected the way we perceive and consume culture today?

FG Today, the different factors that make up cultural and artistic expressions are significantly affected by the pandemic, from the total absence of the pandemic in its beginnings, to the new formats for updating artists and entities linked to the production of works. The artist not only saw the production and delivery of his pieces altered, but the public and art consumers were also affected by something as everyday as visiting a gallery, a museum or a movie at the cinema. Many spaces such as those named above became non-places, different dependencies that used to receive a large capacity of people today were seen totally inert in a society overwhelmed by uncertainty. Naturally, this transition period due to the pandemic saw altered the way we perceive the cultural scene by noticing great changes in the form of exposure. COVID-19 further forced the era of digitization where web platforms allowed to supply those users, buyers or viewers, who saw their physical visit hampered in various artistic, commercial, tourist, educational, etc. forms.

Bio

In 2019, in Santiago de Chile, Franco Galli practices the profession of architect where he also complements his practice with careers for purposes such as design, art and research, promoting an interdisciplinary practice. Since then he has worked in different architecture and engineering offices, and has also competed and won several awards, including first place in the Wood Corporation (Corma) competition, the first outstanding project in the 2019 Chilean architecture biennial, 2nd. place in Electrolux, etc. Much of his work and recognitions have been published in different national and international analog and digital magazines. Among them, the publications in AOA, Plataforma de arquitectura, Trama Magazine and Chile Diseño stand out.