Visual Territories and Architectural Absences in Santiago de Chile. Documentary Etnhography on Living in Urban Debri

Abstract

The article explores the relationship between the transformations of the city of Santiago, the absent architectures and the promotion of a memory and visual fictions regime. The observations use the heritage dialectic of “remains and findings”. It problematizes the absence of relevant architectures of the 16th century and the possibilities for debating the production of “debris and imagined cities”. It proposes an industrial archaeology, archival ethnography and documentary testimony methodology. These approaches allow for a dialogue on the sense of habitability that underlies modern technological development.