Visions of an unrealized park: Chile’s Cerro San Cristóbal, 1915–1927

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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Dominique Bruneau S., Tatiana Carbonell G. and Camila Romero I. for their assistance in interpreting plans and images; to Joaquin Vega M. for his selection of historical clippings about Cerro San Cristóbal; and to Emily Russell for proofreading the previous versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

All translations by the author.

1. The statistics refer to the 1920 Chile census, which established that Santiago province — an administrative jurisdiction surrounding the country’s capital, which is also the seat of the province — had the population of 685,358, with 44.9 inhabitants per square kilometer. Santiago itself at that time had 507,296 inhabitants. Dirección General de Estadística, Censo de Población de La República de Chile Levantado el 15 de Diciembre de 1920 (Santiago: Soc. Imp. y Litografía Universo, 1925). The urban area corresponds to the 1915 estimates, according to Armando de Ramón, ‘La expansión Urbana Entre 1872 y 1930’, in ‘IV La Ciudad Primada (1850–1930)’, Santiago de Chile (1541–1991). Historia de una Sociedad Urbana (Santiago: Catalonia Ediciones, 2007), p. 184. For the introduction of botanical practices in Chile, see Hecht, ‘Dissecting the origins of Chile’s Quinta Normal as a colonial garden, 1838–1856’, Studies on the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, 37/4 (2017), pp. 273–293.

2. A good source of information on the extensive public discussion concerning the state and development of Santiago’s circulation system during this period is local newspapers including El Diario Ilustrado (1902–1940) and El Ferrocarril (1855–1911) and weekly magazines, such as Sucesos (1902–1932), Zig-Zag (1905–1964) and Selecta (1909–1912).

3. Between 1907 and 1920, the population of Santiago grew by 35%, from 332,724 to 507,296 (Dirección General de Estadística). For Santiago’s urban transformation process, following the centennial celebrations, see Arturo Almandoz, Modernización Urbana en América Latina: De las Grandes Alamedas a las Metrópolis Masificadas (Santiago: Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales UC, 2013); Josep Parcerisa Bundó and José Rosas Vera, The Republic Canon at a Distance of Five Thousand (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, 2016); and Fernando Pérez Oyarzun, Arquitectura en el Chile del Siglo XX: Iniciando el Nuevo Siglo (Santiago: Ediciones ARQ, 2016). For the discussion of processes that shaped Latin American cities and landscapes during the post-colonial period, see Anita Berrizbeitia and Hecht, ‘Latin American geographies: a glance over an immense landscape’, Harvard Design Magazine, 34, 2011, pp. 4–13.

4. Álvaro Covarrubias, Enrique Valenzuela and Jorje [sic] Zorrilla, Santiago en 1910: Homenaje al Centenario Nacional (Santiago: Sociedad Imprenta Universo, 1910), pp. 19–21. The largest public space on this list was the Quinta Normal de Agricultura (104.8 ha); the smallest — the plazuela of La Merced Church (308 m²). The four parks listed were the Forestal (8.2 ha), Inglés (0.2 ha), Recoleta (1.3 ha) and Cousiño (80.8 ha), see figure 1.

5. The expression ‘places for recreation’ is taken from Covarrubias, Valenzuela and Zorrilla, p. 19.

6. Henry W. Lawrence, City Trees: A Historical Geography from the Renaissance through the Nineteenth Century (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006), p. 251; The Pan American Union, Santiago: Chile’s Charming Capital (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), p. 32.

7. Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, La Transformación de Santiago. Notas e Indicaciones Respetuosamente Sometidas a La Ilustre Municipalidad, al Supremo Gobierno y al Congreso Nacional, por el Intendente de Santiago. Julio de 1872 (Santiago: Imprenta de la Librería del Mercurio, de Orestes L. Tornero, 1872). The quote is part of the opening section of the book, signed on 22 July 1872.

8. See Endnote 4.

9. On the urban role of Cerro Santa Lucia and the Alameda de las Delicias at the time of the centennial celebrations, see Hecht, ‘Idea y Proyecto de Paisaje en el Santiago del Centenario, 1890–1930’ in Pérez, pp. 132–145.

10. Richard J. Walter, Politics and Urban Growth in Santiago, Chile, 1891–1941 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), p. 79.

11. See Ismael Valdés Valdés, La Transformación de Santiago (Santiago: Sociedad Imprenta-Litografía Barcelona, 1917).

12. This definition of a large park is from James Corner’s ‘Foreword’ to Julia Czerniak and Georges Hargreaves (eds), Large Parks (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007), p. 11.

13. Alonso de Ovalle, Historica Relacion del Reyno de Chile (Roma: Francisco Caballo, 1656), p. 152.

14. For the hill’s geological composition and size, also referred to in the opening paragraph of this article, see M. Vergara, L. López-Escobar, J. L. Palma, R. Hickey-Vargas and C. Roeschmann, ‘Late Tertiary Volcanic Episodes in the area of the City of Santiago de Chile: New Geochronological and Geochemical Data’, Journal of South American Earth Sciences, 17, 2004, pp. 227–238. In terms of property ownership, in 1917, there were 18 owners besides the government: the National Textile Company El Salto, the National Club of Target Shooting, the community of Saint Therese’s Carmelite sisters, Santiago’s Charities Board, José Albónico, Isabel, Julia and Rosario Espoz Gallo, Manuel Fernández and Luis Medina, Amadeo Heiremans, Salvador Izquierdo, Desiderio Lemus, the Lemus-Silva family, Luis Martínez Martínez, Ricardo Matte, Rafael Ossa Fernández, Alberto Riesco, Schiavetti and Figueroa Vial, Francisco, Carlos and Antonia Silva Prado, and Ignacio Valdés and Luis Edwards. Information from consortium Polis-Urban Development, Plan Maestro de Desarrollo Parque Metropolitano de Santiago (2009, Dec., unpublished).

15. For the hill as a site of recreation, see Ministerio de Guerra, 2 February 1899, Ensanche del Polígono del Club de Tiro de Santiago, Ley 1213; Juan Medina Torres, Cerro San Cristóbal, el Gran Balcón de Santiago (Santiago: Consejo de Monumentos Nacionales, 2003), p. 36; and Virgilio Figueroa, ‘Bannen Pradel Pedro’, Diccionario Histórico y Biográfico de Chile, Vol.2, 1800–1928 (Santiago: La Ilustración, 1928), pp. 96–98. For the astronomical center, see Medina Torres, pp. 30–31. Regarding the hill as a nursery, see ‘Inauguración del Bosque Santiago’, Zig-Zag, 3/141, 3 November 1907, and ‘Pájina [sic] agrícola: almácigos de árboles forestales’, Zig-Zag, 3/146, 8 December 1907. For the religious use, see Medina Torres, pp. 17–18, 20; Benjamín Velasco Reyes, El Cerro San Cristóbal (Santiago: Imprenta Nascimiento, 1927), pp. 132, 134; ‘Bendición de la primera piedra del monumento San Cristóbal’, Sucesos, 3/122, 23 December 1904; ‘La Virjen [sic] del cerro San Cristóbal’, Zig-Zag, 4/159, 8 March 1908; ‘Bendición de la estatua de la Inmaculada’, Zig-Zag, 4/167, 13 May 1908; ‘La romería al cerro San Cristóbal’ in Sucesos 6/275, 12 December 1907, Sucesos 7/312, 27 August 1908, Sucesos 8/364, 26 August 1909, Sucesos 8/373, 28 October 1909, Sucesos 8/380, 16 December 1907 and Sucesos 8/406, 16 June 1910; and Luisa Flora Voionmaa Tanner, ‘Modernidad Republicana e Identidad Nacional entre la Guerra del Pacífico y el Centenario de la Independencia’, Santiago 1792–2004. Escultura Pública: Del Monumento Conmemorativo a la Escultura Urbana (Santiago: OchoLibro Editores, 2005), pp. 142–143.

16. Alberto Mackenna Subercaseaux, ‘Dos Palabras’, Santiago Futuro: Conferencias sobre los Proyectos de Transformación de Santiago (Santiago: Soc. Imprenta-Litografía Barcelona, 1915), p. [4]. This is a compilation of the committee’s vision of the city’s future. For the Junta de Transformación, see Walter, ‘3 Municipal Reform and Its Results (1910–1920)’, pp. 51–73.

17. Mackenna Subercaseaux, ‘Santiago Futuro: Velada en la Biblioteca Nacional el 6 de Septiembre de 1912’, pp. 9, 11, 14.

18. Ibid., pp. 18–27.

19. For this event, see ‘¿QUÉ OCURRE EN EL SAN CRISTÓBAL? Extraños fenómenos. — Se abren grandes grietas y se producen derrumbes de peñascos. — Lo que han visto algunas personas’, El Mercurio (14 March 1915), p. 15; ‘LAS GRIETAS DEL SAN CRISTÓBAL. ¿Revisten peligro para los vecinos de aquel barrio? — Lo que nos dice uno de los astrónomos del observatorio norteamericano’, El Mercurio (16 March 1915), p. 12; ‘LAS GRIETAS DEL SAN CRISTÓBAL. Gravedad que podrían revestir para el vecindario de ese sector de la ciudad. — Medidas que es indispensable adoptar por ahora. — Lo que dice el Director de Obras Municipales al Alcalde. — El informe del Director del Servicio Sismológico’, El Mercurio (17 March 1915), p. 12; ‘LAS GRIETAS DEL SAN CRISTÓBAL. ¿Qué medidas han tomado las autoridades para prevenir el peligro que presentan al vecindario? — Lo que nos dicen algunos vecinos de aquel barrio. — Opinión del director del servicio sismológico sobre lo ocurrido en el cerro’, El Mercurio (18 March 1915), p. 12; ‘LAS GRIETAS DEL SAN CRISTÓBAL. La Inspección de Geografía y Minas designa al geólogo de esta repartición para que le informe sobre ellas. — Entrevista con el profesor de Geología de la Universidad de Chile. — El denuncio de la 9.a Comisaría’, El Mercurio (20 March 1915), p. 10; and ‘LAS GRIETAS DEL SAN CRISTÓBAL. Un informe del geólogo del Museo Nacional. — Peligro para las construcciones de la parte baja’, El Mercurio (24 March 1915), p. 12.

20. See Ramón Subercaseaux, ‘El cerro de San Cristóbal’, El Mercurio (16 March 1915), p. 3, and ‘Transformemos el San Cristóbal’, El Mercurio (20 March 1915), p. 3.

21. See ‘LA TRANSFORMACIÓN DEL SAN CRISTÓBAL. Lo que nos dice el Intendente de Santiago — Un proyecto hermoso que fracasó’, El Mercurio (22 March 1915), p. 10, and ‘TERRENOS DEL SAN CRISTOBAL’, El Mercurio (19 July 1916), p. 13. To authors like Figueroa (p. 96), Bannen was ‘the champion and, in a way, a founder’ of the San Cristóbal Park — although, ironically, his main connection with this idea was his role as the president of the target shooting club.

22. Quotes from the caption to the postcard mentioned in Zig-Zag, 12/613, 18 November 1916. The species listed are indicated in the drawing, corresponding also to Federico Albert’s recommendations for replanting arid hills in the country as mentioned in La Replantación de los Cerros Áridos del País (Santiago: Imprenta Moneda, 1906). Albert was head of the Section of Waters and Forests at the Chilean Ministry of Industry.

23. At the time, the only way to access and ‘wander’ around the site was the ‘almost finished’ road that went up to the monument of the Virgin Mary, which was ‘laid out by engineer Germán Holthmer’. In ‘TERRENOS DEL SAN CRISTÓBAL’, p. 13.

24. For a detailed history of the scouts’ local branch, see Jorge Rojas Flores, Los Boy Scouts en Chile, 1909–1953 (Santiago: Centro de Investigaciones Diego Barros Arana, 2006). See also the official magazine El Scout. Siempre Listo, 1913–1914, 1919–1920. The first national inspection that included the participation of more than 1800 scouts — about 30% of the total enrolment — was conducted on 23 November 1913 by USA President Theodore Roosevelt (p. 24).

25. This argument concerned the movement to take urban children ‘back to nature’ owes to Peter J. Schmitt, Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in Urban America (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990 [1969]). On the nature-study movement and children’s education, see specifically ‘Arcadia Comes to School’, ‘Blue Birds and Bean Sprouts’ and ‘The Church in the Wildwood’, pp. 77–95, 141–145.

26. ‘El simulacro de conquista del San Cristóbal. — La fiesta de los scouts. — En el Cerro San Cristóbal. — Entusiasmo de los excursionistas. — Numerosa concurrencia los acompaña’, El Mercurio (30 July 1916). See also Velasco Reyes, ‘Simulacro’, pp. 45–49.

27. From Las Últimas Noticias (28 August 1916) reprinted in La Conquista del San Cristóbal por los Boy-Scouts (Santiago: Imp. Franco-Chilena, G. Gregoire, 1918), pp. 9, 10. The petitioners included deputies Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Arturo Alemparte, Carlos Balmaceda, Nolasco Cárdenas, Samuel Claro, Enrique Döll, Exequiel Fernández, M. García de la Huerta, José María Larraín, Ignacio Marchant, D. Matte L., Tomás Menchaca, Robinson Paredes, Luis Pereira, Arturo Prat, Pablo Ramírez, Francisco Rivas Vicuña, Víctor V. Robles, Enrique A. Rodríguez, C. Ruiz, Romualdo Silva, Guillermo Subercaseaux, J. Francisco Urrejola, Augusto Vicuña and Enrique Zañartu. See also ‘La transformación del San Cristóbal. LO QUE DICE EL SEÑOR INTENDENTE DE SANTIAGO’, Zig-Zag, 12/614, 25 November 1916, and Velasco Reyes, ‘Frutos del Simulacro’, pp. 51–53.

28. ‘La repartición de recompensas por el campeonato al San Cristóbal. Investidura de nuevas brigadas’ from El Mercurio (Sept. 1916), reprinted in La Conquista del San Cristóbal por los Boy-Scouts, pp. 20, 21. See also ‘Una fiesta de los Boy-Scouts’, Zig-Zag, 12/606, 30 September 1916, and Velasco Reyes, ‘La Conquista’ and ‘Laureles’, pp. 55–63.

29. Velasco Reyes, ‘Veladas pro San Cristóbal’, p. 90. The boy scouts also celebrated Arbor Day on July 19, July 29 and 8 October 1917, which were also celebrations of the approval of legislation to transform the hill into a park (see endnote 30). See Velasco Reyes, ‘Afianzamiento de la Conquista’ and ‘Deo gratia’, pp. 65–74; ‘La Conquista del cerro San Cristóbal’, Zig-Zag, 13/650, 4 August 1917; ‘Original iniciativa de esta institución. La fiesta nocturna de mañana’, El Mercurio (28 July 1917), p. 24, ‘Hermosa iniciativa de los scouts. Entusiasmo popular por concurrir a este acto original’, El Mercurio (29 July 1917), p. 25; ‘El significativo acto realizado por los Scouts. Fiesta del árbol en la Avenida Santa María. — Fuegos artificiales en la falda del cerro’, El Mercurio (30 July 1917), pp. 22–23, and ‘La conquista del San Cristóbal. Acción de gracias. La ascensión de ayer. — Alocución del señor don Alberto Mackenna’, El Mercurio (9 October 1917), pp. 26–31, all reprinted in La Conquista del San Cristóbal por los Boy-Scouts.

30. Ministerio de Hacienda, 28 September 1915, Lei No. 3295, que Autoriza La Transformación del Cerro San Cristóbal. For the appraisal, the president named a commission formed by Rubén Dávila Izquierdo, Luis Díaz Garcés and Vicente Izquierdo Phillips, who determined that the total cost would be 1,048,532  Chilean pesos. In the end, 381,775 pesos was used to buy the properties for the Carmelite sisters of Saint Therese, Albónico, the Espoz sisters, Fernández and Medina, Heiremans, Izquierdo, Lemus, the Lemus-Silva family, Matte, Ossa and Schiavetti and Figueroa (see Endnote 14). The rest of the funds was to be used for planting 5000 trees and building 2 roads to the summit as well as a channel from the Mapocho River. See Medina Torres, p. 43, 46.

31. The committee consisted of Governor Pablo Urzúa and Major Rogelio Ugarte, Paulino Alfonso, Bannen, Agustín Correa Bravo, Manuel Corvalán, Carlos R. Dinator, Vicente Izquierdo, Carlos Lira Infante, Mackenna Subercaseaux, Horacio Manríquez, Víctor Plaza de la Barra, Alfredo Salas Ibáñez, Francisco Subercaseaux, Guillermo Subercaseaux and Rafael Valdés. See Medina Torres, pp. 43–44.

32. Mackenna Subercaseaux, ‘El San Cristóbal Futuro’, El Mercurio (14 February 1919), p. 3.

33. Sonia Berjman has extensively discussed Thays’s designs as the product of his application of late-nineteenth century French style to public spaces, a combination of the seventeenth-century French park model and the eighteenth-century English park. See, for example, ‘L’influence d’Édouard André sur les espaces verts publics de Buenos Aires’, Florence André and Stéphanie de Courtois (eds), Édouard André (1840–1911). Un paysagiste botaniste sur les chemins du monde (Paris: Les Éditions de l’Imprimeur, 2001), pp. 175–187, and Carlos Thays: un Jardinero Francés en Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Embajada de Francia, 2009).

34. ‘EL CERRO SAN CRISTÓBAL. Visita del ingeniero señor Carlos Thays. — Su impresión sobre el futuro paseo. — Podría ser uno de los más bellos del mundo’, El Mercurio (3 December 1919), p. 22.

35. Various authors indicate that Thays had visited the site during his previous visit to Santiago in 1907. The only reference published at the time that I have found describes his visit to ‘all the main promenades that decorate our town: Cerro Santa Lucia, the Cousiño Park, the Quinta Normal de Agricultura, the Alameda de las Delicias, the National Congress public gardens, the Recoleta Park and the Plaza de la Independencia’, without mentioning Cerro San Cristóbal. At that time, he even proposed the construction of a new park in the southwest of the city, an idea probably put forward by major Ugarte, who accompanied Thays on his visit. To achieve this goal, the government should have needed to acquire the surrounding grounds of the Cousiño Park to enlarge it. See ‘Don Carlos Thays’, Zig-Zag, 3/112, 14 April 1907.

In a 1919 interview, however, Mackenna Su-bercaseaux  mentions that Thays told him that when he visited Chile ‘in 1910 … he was taken to have lunch on the San Cristóbal summit and he was amazed that so far there were no thoughts to transform it into a beautiful promenade that could become the world’s best, considering that no other city has an ensemble as complete and at the same time as variegated as this hill, in the middle of the town, with beautiful ravines, bordering a river, dominating a beautiful valley, etc.’. I presume this testimony was part of Mackenna Subercaseaux’s scheme to maintain the project in the public’s mind. See ‘EL CERRO SAN CRISTÓBAL. Su transformación y ornamentación. — Ventajosa propuesta del ingeniero paisajista señor Carlos Thays. — Es presentada ayer al intendente por el señor Alberto Mackenna’, El Mercurio (13 November 1919), p. 20.

36. ‘EL CERRO SAN CRISTÓBAL. Su transformación y ornamentación….’, p. 20.

37. Thays also expressed an interest in revisiting his Western Public Park in Mendoza, Argentina, known today as General San Martín Park, which he described as a 500-ha hill like Cerro San Cristóbal, ‘although with softer slopes’. In ‘EL INGENIERO SEÑOR THAYS. Regresó ayer a Buenos Aires. — Lleva los datos y observaciones necesarias para confeccionar el plano de transformación del cerro San Cristóbal’, El Mercurio (17 December 1919), p. 17.

Conceived in 1896, Thays’s Mendoza park was built in the west of the city on a rocky site where he designed a monumental rectilinear entrance flanked with a reproduction of The Horses of Marly, Guillaume Coustou’s sculpture originally ornamenting the gardens of the Marly French château. The main avenue was supposed to provide a visual connection, spanning almost 2 km, between Mendoza’s downtown and the park, which was laid out as a combination of meandering roads, meadows, groves and structures that included pavilions for restaurants and bandstands, areas for playing cricket, lawn tennis and soccer, a racetrack, a velodrome, a botanical garden, a zoo, a lake with piers for regattas, grottoes, lookout points and waterfalls, among other features. Under Thays’s management, and in only 13 years from conception to execution, Mendoza’s Western Park emerged with its dramatic topography, profuse vegetation and a lake, encouraging its intensive public use that continues to this day. It is worth noting that 13 years is almost the same period that took Mackenna Subercaseaux to promote his project for San Cristóbal. For Thays’s project for the Mendoza park and its subsequent development, see Ana E. Castro, El Parque General San Martín: Sus Primeros Cincuenta Años (Mendoza: Junta de Estudios Históricos, 1996).

38. See O.B., ‘El San Cristóbal tiene sed’, Zig-Zag, 16/790, 10 April 1920, and Gil del Río, ‘Las obras del San Cristóbal: fondos para su continuación’, Zig-Zag, 16/799, 12 June 1920.

39. See ‘EMBELLECIMIENTO DEL CERRO SAN CRISTOBAL. Para mayor seguridad de los paseantes. — Preparativos para la construcción del ascensor. Hoy tendrá lugar la prueba del sifón para el regadío’, El Mercurio (17 January 1922), p. 13; ‘Las obras de regadío del cerro San Cristóbal’, Zig-Zag, 17/883, 21 January 1922; and Roxane, ‘Notas sociales’, Zig-Zag, 18/894, 8 April 1922.

40. See ‘La ceremonia de colocación de la primera piedra del funicular San Cristóbal. Asisten a este acto autoridades de la provincia y el Ministro de Italia, don Fortunato Castoldi. — El acta en que se deja constancia de la ceremonia. — Discursos del Intendente, don Alberto Mackenna, y del ingeniero de la compañía concesionaria del funicular’, El Mercurio (25 November 1923), p. 31; ‘El ascensor del cerro San Cristóbal’, Zig-Zag, 20/999, 12 April 1924; Max Aguirre, ‘Imaginación instintiva: La Arquitectura de Kulczewski en el cerro San Cristóbal’, ARQ, 34, Dec. 1996, pp. 12–15; and Fernando Riquelme S., La arquitectura de Luciano Kulczewski (Santiago: Ediciones ARQ, 1996).

41. Riquelme S., p. 35.

42. See Aguirre, p. 15 and ‘El funicular del San Cristóbal’, Zig-Zag, 21/1054, 2 May 1925.

43. See Medina Torres, pp. 58–59 and ‘En el zoo del San Cristóbal’, Zig-Zag, 21/1086, 12 December 1925.

44. Velasco Reyes, p. 176.

45. The Plano Oficial de Urbanización de La Comuna de Santiago (Official Urbanization Plan of Santiago Municipal District) was approved and published in 1939. The Plano Oficial, in fact, became the first planning tool that created a legal mechanism to define the city’s configuration and organization on the basis of zoning for specific land uses, the creation of a circulation system of roads and avenues and the provisions for maintenance of the already existing ‘large green areas’: avenues, public forested spaces, parks and urban sports fields. See Karl Brunner, Santiago de Chile: su Estado Actual y Futura Transformación (Santiago: Imprenta La Tracción, 1932).

46. Ministerio del Interior, 23 August 1961, Aprueba el Reglamento Orgánico para La Administración del Cerro San Cristóbal, Decree 3053, Art. 1.

47. Ibid., Art. 3, a, c.

48. Ministerio de Hacienda, 25 April 1966, Reajusta Sueldos y Salarios que Indica, Modifica los D.F.L. y las Leyes que Señala, Suplementa Item de La Ley de Presupuestos Vigente, Condona Valores Entregados a Diferetes [sic] Empleados, Crea Parque Metropolitano de Santiago, Fija Normas Sobre Previsión, Normas Est-abilizadoras de Precios de Artículos de Primera Necesidad y Otras Materias, Ley 16.464.

In 1966, Decree 891 was also published (Ministerio del Interior, 26 August 1966, Fija Nuevo Texto del DFL No. 264, de 1960). It promulgated the new text for DFL No. 264 of 1960 (Ministerio del Interior, 5 April 1960, Declara en Reorganización y Fija las Plantas de Funcionarios del Jardín Zoológico Nacional y del Cerro San Cristóbal) regarding the two service heads that administered the Santiago Metropolitan Park (the head of the Zoological Garden and the steward of Cerro San Cristóbal, understood as the rest of the land that is not the zoo), regulating the objectives, administrative subordination, functional roles and provisions for concessions, leases and grazing contracts for what is now the Metropolitan Park.

49. Mackenna Subercaseaux, 11 September 1942, letter to Carlos Thays (Charles’s son), courtesy of Sonia Berjman.

Additional information

Funding

FONDECYT Project N° 1160277 (CONICYT Chile): ‘Emergent landscapes, Santiago 1831–1939: public projects and urban transformation’ (conducted by the author, 2016–2019).