Cristian UndurragaChilean architecture in conflict

an exhibition curated by 

Massimo Ferrari and Claudia Tinazzi

with Alba Marcela Britez Cordoba and Annalucia D’Erchia 

working team

Arianna Huaman, Giulia Martinelli, Alexia Melzi 

exhibition planned and promoted by 

Politecnico di Milano – Mantova Campus 

UNESCO Chair in Architectural Preservation and Planning in World Heritage Cities 

for 

Casa del Mantegna, Provincia di Mantova

models 

Arianna Huaman, Giulia Martinelli, Alexia Melzi (Politecnico di Milano – Mantova Campus)

BRG studio

Undurraga Deves Arquitectos Ltda

photo credits

Felipe Diaz, Ronald Halbe, Sebastian Mallea, Cristobal Palma, Sergio Pirrone, Taller Pizarra, Roberto Saez, Pilar Undurraga, Gregorio Vasquez, Guy Wenborne

video 

Alexis Moreno

exhibition set up

En’t Graphic, I falegnami, TB legno

thanks to

Estudio Undurraga Deves, Ana Deves, Federica Pugliese, Soledad Fernandez, Sebastian Mallea, Jua Jose Correa, Pablo Camus, Marcelo Morales, Fundacion Museo Violeta Parra, Maurizio Lionetti, Francesco Coroni, Mattia Ridolfi, Corrado Kay Hwa Severino, Mantova Campus Staff

ITALIAN CONNECTION 

“We want to be a country and we are barely a landscape”, said the poet Nicanor Parra, emphasising the pre-eminence of landscape over everything. Space – the freedom of space – is perhaps one of the most abundant assets of this earth. All this makes my notion of space very different from yours (from the Italian one). The idea of space in this finis terrae always refers to the scale of the landscape. That is why my recent visit to Rome was – as always – such a unique experience. 

BEFORE THE CITY. THE ORIGIN 

The challenge we face as a society is to reconcile those aspects in which globalization has brought progress for humanity with the values inherent to the cultures that preceded us and that today fight to keep their identity alive. 

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONFLICT 

The history of a conflict

The rubble and debris from the Government Palace left a profound mark on our society. The wounds that were opened, the pain of the victims, and the mourning that followed keep the CONFLICT alive, more than 50 years later. 

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONFLICT 

City and politics. The conflict

The Civic District project in Santiago, initiated in 1980 and continued from 1995 to the present day, collects the rubble and shards that fell there during the dictatorship, creating a new urban landscape to celebrate the reconciliation of Chileans – a project that also reflects the intimate relationship between citizens and their public spaces, whose destinies are inexorably linked. The plazas and do not resolve our conflicts, but they offer spaces where we can come together. 

URBAN CONFLICT

We must propose a strategy of cultivating the city. This entails responsible and sustainable development inspired by a collective ethic, one that rejects greed and short-term development strategies. It is in that practice where we will find the appropriate response for the urban future of the planet, and where we can stop the dangerous urban and social erosion, making our habitat a dignified and just place. The first problem is ethical… Only then can we think about the technical.

The exhibition reinterprets the work of Cristian Undurraga (Santiago de Chile, 1954) through the theme of conflict, which is so deeply rooted in Chile's DNA and complex history. Undurraga's work, generously supported by the Undurraga Devés Arquitectos studio founded in 1978 together with his wife Anna Deves, explores architecture as a complex system of themes that interact in a complementary way. These themes gradually evolve over time, alongside the cultural and technological progress of the world, to build hospitality as a permanent condition, deeply rooted and an integral part of the substance of architecture. 

According to a threefold register and a multidisciplinary interpretation, the exhibition highlights selected projects from the Chilean studio's extensive portfolio that best embody the central role of contemporary architecture in various conflictual contexts, a role that stems from the certainty of the ethical value attributed to the work of architects in every era and in every latitude and longitude.

Identity in conflict, social and political conflict, and finally urban conflicts – like chapters in a singular narrative reflecting on the history of a finis terrae country – translate in this exhibition the many forms in which conflict manifests itself, binding populations, cities and architecture together. 

As part of this narrative, made up of stages based on drawings, models, references and historical material, the work of the Undurraga Devés Arquitectos studio recognises, in its opening, the close link – both personal and, more generally, in terms of Chilean architecture – with our country, Italy, an important architectural and cultural reference point, especially in the country's rebirth after Pinochet's military dictatorship. 

The exhibition, which has been hosted by Casa del Mantegna since 14 May 2025, has attempted to reach out to the various audiences who have visited the sequence of rooms that make up the house. Different possible routes have suggested different insights as well as different interpretations. 

The exhibition interpreted the place that hosted it first and foremost in terms of the close connection between the spacious rooms that follow one another without interruption and the beautiful courtyard onto which these introverted spaces overlook. 

The exhibition attempted to tell many stories: on the one hand, the architecture of a South American studio that decided to work – often silenciously – in the service of collective and social issues; on the other, the art of a South American woman, Violeta Parra, who fighting for social justice and the preservation of traditional identity in her country; and finally, the story of a country “where the earth ends”.