Between Propaganda and Dissent: Postmodern Architecture in Pinochet’s Chile

Postmodern forms and tendencies that appeared in Chilean architecture in the 1970s not only overlapped with Augusto Pinochet’s neoliberal dictatorship that lasted from 1973 to 1990 but also are closely connected to the political and economic vision fostered by the dictatorship. Postmodern forms found in banks, hotels, and other commercial buildings and spaces populating Chilean cities in the seventies and eighties aided the government’s political agenda as they helped to normalize painful neoliberal reforms and create an image of prosperity and progress. Moreover, in projects such as the Plaza de la Constitución in Santiago de Chile (1980–1982) and the Congreso Nacional de Chile in Valparaíso (1988–1990), postmodern aesthetics and philosophy were used to project an image of an open democratic country. In these realizations, postmodern tropes such as the symbolic potential of architectural form and references to architectural tradition were used to fabricate a vision of history and society desired by the Pinochet government. Simultaneously, the same architectural currents embraced by Pinochet for propagandistic purposes were utilized by Chilean architects who considered themselves opposed to the dictatorship. This can be seen in the work of CEDLA (Centro de Estudios de la Arquitectura, Center for Architectural Studies), an independent collective of Chilean architects established in 1977 in Santiago de Chile. The members of CEDLA promoted a version of a politically and socially engaged postmodernism that could counter the neoliberal agenda of Pinochet. This paper discusses both ways in which postmodernism was interpreted in Chile during the dictatorship. Investigating Chilean postmodernism helps us rethink the dominant portrayal of postmodernism as politically indifferent or conservative and as part of Jameson’s ‘cultural logic of late capitalism’.