The Present of a New Past

Updating the genealogy of Andean colonial cities

Latin American urban historiography has traditionally defined a Spanish origin for the city of Santiago, Chile. However, recent territorial analysis, new archaeological evidence, and a critical reading of Spanish colonial chronicles have questioned this narrative, presenting an alternative version in which Spanish conquistadors occupied and repurposed a preexisting Inka administrative centre¹. Inka urban centres were connected by the Qhapaq ñan -road network- and distributed according to spatial units based on temporal modules. This, along with territorial demarcations projected from urban centres, defining orographic relations with the surrounding sacralised topography that served calendrical and ceremonial functions², shows how the Tawantinsuyu -the empire of the Inka- rooted their settlements within its natural environment. In diametral opposition, the geometric abstraction of the Spanish colonial grid placed cities ubiquitously across the territory. Questioning the origin of a city will inevitably affect the dialectical relation between identity and the built environment, raising the study of Spanish colonial cities in former Inka territories to a debate of epistemological and ontological dimensions. This article reflects on the ontological and epistemological implications of this debate for the present identity of Andean colonial cities, challenging traditional approaches to Andean urban historiography built upon colonial epistemologies, critically reviewing their political, spatial, religious, and cultural dimensions according to an expanded ontological framework. The expected contribution of this exercise is to offer a new genealogical perspective to study the link between the past and present of Andean colonial cities.

Since its conquest and subsequent colonisation, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the American continent underwent an explosive process of urbanisation. Never before in Western history had that many cities been founded, so rapidly, and in such a vast territory³. This process, however, did not only respond to political or military reasons, nor solely to economic motivations, but was in itself an act of profound symbolic implications. In this sense, emphasised architect and urban historian Jaime Salcedo, the American continent represented for its conquerors an opportunity to "extend their culture, their faith, their ordering of the world and society", according to which territorial expansion became a way of life, and the new cities a field for the reproduction of a society that reflected the values of a profoundly catholic Spain⁴. Thus, the founding of cities in America gradually became both an instrument and a symbol of an ideal order, imposed over the territory and native populations, oscillating between military and religious imperatives and means. Consequently, the city assumed a condition of ‘historical boundary’, marking their inception a before and after in the trajectory of the territories.

Traditionally approached and studied within this epistemological framework, the city of Santiago, Chile, would at first glance appear to fall right within this category of Spanish colonial endeavour. Over the past few decades, however, interdisciplinary efforts to critically reviewed primary documentary sources, supported by abundant archaeological evidence, led to a radical revision of this narrative. Instead, it was proposed that the city was the result of Spanish conquistadors occupying and repurposing an Inka administrative centre, founded sometime in the mid 15th century during the height of the Inka conquest of the Andean territories⁵. Despite their historical antagonism, Inkas and Spaniards largely coincided in the strategies deployed in their overlapping colonising campaigns⁶. In both cases, the founding of administrative centres -cities- was instrumental in the organisation and synchronisation of their corresponding empires, featuring strong representational and symbolic implications. In this sense, cities that -like Santiago- share a common origin in this twofold colonisation process, would see their urban space perform the ontological dispute between the Andean and Hispanic worlds, inviting us to consider how this dynamic would affect the way in which such cities should be approached and theorised today.

Over the past decades, Latin American urban historiography has focused on its more recent past. Seeking to find the roots of current urban conflicts and problems in the modernisation of cities during the XIX century⁷, it coincides with the end of the colonial period and the construction of new national identities. However, in the midst of contemporary discourses of decolonisation, an indigenous origin for a Spanish colonial city invites us to revisit the colonial period to address how, as an object of study, it has been theorised only according to events that meant a radical break in the trajectory of the continent. But also, and probably the most critical concern, should be how within an expanded cultural framework, colonial cities in the Andean region in particular shall be approached not only epistemologically, as well as in ontological terms. Reflecting on the manner in which urban environments enact the history of cities, urban planner and author Kevin Lynch wondered about the role a perceived temporality effects on our experience of a place⁸. A new past for the city of Santiago does not eliminate its history -but rather expands it, affecting the historic and symbolic meanings associated with its recycled historic centre, as they no longer assume the form of one representational effort alone. Written as part of my doctoral research on Spanish colonial cities in former Inka territories, this article deals with the implications of an indigenous past for the study of Andean colonial cities, by focusing on the case of Santiago. Proposed by philosopher Michel Foucault as a theoretical tool to address power relations and the shortcomings of historiographical research⁹, a genealogical approach is introduced to balance the epistemological-ontological tensions evidenced by the subject matter, as well as the different temporalities converging, as well as confronting one another, in the discovery of a new urban past.

Little material evidence remains in place to tell the story of Santiago as a colonial city. After almost five centuries, between devastating earthquakes and urban regeneration, most colonial era architecture has disappeared, making the urban fabric of its historic centre its most relevant testimony. In this sense, although at first glance even less remains of a prehispanic past, it is precisely in its fabric where some rather impressive indigenous structures can be found today; roads, irrigation systems and a calendric system offer testimony of an interconnected and well developed land (figure 1), as well as the basic grammar for the shape the city acquired over time¹⁰. The irruption in 2012 of the concept of the city of Santiago having an indigenous origin came as the culmination of decades worth of rigorous interdisciplinary research, allowing to establish a strong connection between the inception of the Spanish colonial city and a preexisting Inka administrative centre¹¹. Further archaeological research adds to these findings¹². Little has been done, however, in order to reconcile colonial historiography with an rediscovered indigenous past; a new epistemological field where divergent ontologies and temporalities collide in one space, adding extra layers of complexity to the way in which the city should be both understood and theorised today.

An Inka origin for Santiago shows how cities like this one would be the product of at least two colonising campaigns; first, the expansion of the Inka empire in the 15th century, followed in rapid succession by the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. However, and despite the interdisciplinary interest and the resources employed in its study, archaeologist Steven Wernke points at how the events taking place before and after the Spanish invasion of the Andean region of South America have traditionally been approached as discontinuous processes, despite the fact that a significant number of Inka institutions and infrastructures were recorded as remaining in place after their appropriation by the Spaniards¹³. The Inka empire flourished in the city of Cuzco -present day Peru-, covering an area that went from the southern tip of Colombia to central Chile, over a period of a little over a century. The striking speed of this process can be explained, according to classic Andean scholarship, due to a skilful diplomatic apparatus based on the pan-Andean principle of ‘reciprocity’¹⁴and macroscale territorial planning¹⁵, drawing on earlier Andean governmental and technological achievements¹⁶. Altogether, this tradition sets its own epistemological framework.

Also relevant for the understanding of the pre-Hispanic Andean world is the relationship established between the built environment with the surrounding geography. In this sense, the symbolic construction of landscapes, and the spatio-temporal representation of their sacred orders, adds ontological complexity to the understanding of the scale and constitution of urban centres. At the core of this order is the structuring of the empire according to radial quadrants, represented by virtual sight lines projected from the capital Cusco onto sacralised geographic markers, distributed around the four regions of the empire -suyus-. Known as the ceques system, these orographic relations were the basis of the spatio-temporal organisation of the Tawantinsuyu, articulating the cosmological, political, economic and social structure of the Inka Empire¹⁷. Described by archaeologist John Hyslop as an administrative instrument, the “the spatial patterning of the ceque system also influenced architectural planning in other Inka settlements”¹⁸. A ceque system has been described for the Inka administrative centre of Santiago (figure 1), placing at its centre the ceremonial square of the settlement, later turned into the main square of the Spanish colonial city¹⁹. Therefore today, as if facing the body of an ancient human, when standing on this square we shall find ourselves at a crossroads, an experience described by Lynch as the shock of a ‘short circuit of time’²⁰, a space where indigenous and spanish temporalities converge.

Acknowledging the possibilities of human experience as a doorway into the past of built environments, archaeologist Christopher Tilley aims -from a phenomenological perspective- at understanding the dialectical bond established between people and place, giving this interaction “rise to a feeling of belonging and rootedness and a familiarity” which, in turn, “is not born just out of knowledge, but of concern that provides ontological security”²¹. As such, familiarity and security shall provide the foundations for identification with the place; an environment known and acknowledged both in constitution and essence. Architecture historian Carmen Popescu deals with identification with the built environment, underscoring an intimate link between identity and architecture. In her view, identity emerges as a result of a system of references established by the notions of physical space and historical time, where architecture operates both as an instrument and vehicle of identity; that is a mechanism, not a reflection²². In this sense, architect Aldo Rossi expands on the link between architecture and time, placing its interest on the historical condition of the city. In his words, "with time, the city grows upon itself; it acquires a consciousness and memory. In the course of its construction, its original themes persist, but at the same time it modifies and renders these themes of its own development more specific"²³.
However, time alone does not explain the evolution of a given space, as human will and its representational capacities must also be taken into consideration. In this sense, the aesthetics and necessity forging the architectural project as an urban fact are then again a matter of a specific ontological framework and epistemological tradition, lending a particular character to the inception of an European city in a Andean colonial outpost.

As a representation of an ideal, the Spanish colonial city portrayed according to Salcedo “a model of cosmic order in which the indigenous world, as pagan, was considered as the primordial chaos"²⁴. The city, thus understood as a source of order, played a predominant role in relation to the exercise of power and cultural imposition. The Spanish founding of Santiago was a process centred around one key urban element: the main square. Architect and historian Gabriel Guarda O.S.B. delves in the importance of the main square for Spanish colonial town planning, as it "constituted the heart of political life - in the sense of polis - and the nerve centre of civic activity”, centred around it, the city would find its most emblematic buildings, “starting with the main church, and continuing with the seat of the bishops or rectors of the main churches, governors and the town council, or, as in Santiago, the Royal Audience"²⁵, projecting sense and order onto the conquered territories and peoples. Guarda dissects the symbolism underlying the urban fabric of colonial Santiago, "from the grid layout, which determines two axes oriented towards the cardinal points”, inherited from ancient Rome, “the city presents a plan marked by the Cross of the Redemption. As if that were not enough (...) the islands or ‘blocks’ are divided into four plots by another cross", an urban statement of joint military and religious endeavour²⁶(Figure 2). As such, Spanish colonial cities were indeed statements of power. For Popescu, the interaction between ideology and aesthetics directly affects the construction of identities²⁷, raising awareness of the rhetorical value of the city. Thus, by questioning the fundamentals of its spaciality and history, the urban identity of Santiago comes into question.

Typologically heir to the Roman military camps, the Spanish colonial city is characterised by the abstract orthogonality and regularity of its layout. Following this line of thinking, historian Alan Durston highlighted how, by means of its abstract spatial disposition, the colonial city "represents an intentionality of change and domination”, a persuasive and rhetorical function aimed at modifying the lives and thinking of its inhabitants²⁸. Along with offering practical advantages, the model colonial city was implemented as an instant colonising device²⁹, conceived to establish and reproduce a new ideal cultural order and identity. In this sense, it is necessary to highlight the historic framework under which Spain embarked in the colonisation of America. According to historian Isabel Cruz de Amenábar, unlike other European powers that found themselves transitioning into a Renaissance mindset, "Spain preserved during this period”, that is, the XVI and XVII centuries, “the theocentric ideals of the Middle Ages and their subsequent translation into everyday life”, becoming both repository and champion of Catholic religious ideals³⁰. The idea of inscribing Spanish colonial cities within a mediaeval cultural framework is shared by many historians³¹. According to this tradition, the process of the founding of a colonial city was dominated by religious ceremonial symbols and practices, imposing a sacred character onto the city as a whole, a view that is, according to Durston, “supported by the founding acts that tend to emphasise the religious nature of the foundation and also the importance of the layout in the ritual"³², an urban space seeded by an ideal of cosmological order. 

In the Andean context, the transition from Inka to Spanish domination reveals shared spatial strategies and operations, both seeking to impose structure and order. From this perspective, the symbolic value of pre-existences deemed as relevant becomes a capital for conquest. Tilley highlights the role of memory in the social and individual temporality of a place, where both the past and the spaces “are crucially constitutive of their presents”³³, key to influence the way in which cultures and subjects project and understand themselves in the environment they inhabit. In this sense, for Wernke, "colonial projects that aim to erase and replace autochthonous practices must resonate with autochthonous analogues" (Wernke, 2013, p. 7), this is because, according to Tilley, “neither space nor time can be understood apart from social practices which serve to bind them together”³⁴, therefore, present places will always resonate with the past experiences. From a more contemporary urban perspective, Lynch adds to the dialogue by commenting on the loss of of historical environment and its effects on the experience of a city, where “the past is known, familiar, a possession in which we may feel secure”³⁵. As previously discussed, identity depends on both time and space. Together, these coordinates "determine the way in which tradition is conceptualised: the dynamics of temporality engenders its substance and the spatial boundaries determine its addressee" (Popescu, 2006, p. 193). The discovery of urban spaces transcending the colonial historic divide is bound to lead to a debate regarding the characteristics and boundaries of the past. In this regard, a genealogical approach opens the possibility to integrate converging temporalities, as well as diverse epistemologies and ontologies, providing new alternatives for a more comprehensive study of Andean colonial cities. 

Three decades ago, historian and ethnographer Eduardo Kingman Garcés reflected on the use of the term ‘Andean’, championed in the social sciences as synonymous to indigenous. The author proposed that, instead of this ahistorical use of the term, it should be viewed as a process rather than a condition; the result of a common trajectory by which an identity linked to indigenous roots is forged³⁶. Later, the author penned the term ‘andean city’: cities that, as Santiago, share a common past of colonisation and the presence of European, mestizo and indigenous Andean populations³⁷, containing in their urban space the epistemological-ontological dispute between the Indigenous and Hispanic worlds. Since the dawn of Spanish colonial times, Christianity recognised a radical difference between Europeans and Indigenous populations, dividing them into two 'republics'; one of the natives and the other of the Spaniards³⁸. Within Spanish colonial thought, America was conceived as a refounding project of a primitive continent. In this sense, the concept of ‘allochronism’ is proposed by anthropologist Johannes Fabian as a critical tool to define denial of synchrony or contemporaneity, accounting for the arbitrary differentiation between European and indigenous temporalities, by which the former is presented as modern or contemporary and the latter is relegated to the past³⁹. The Andean city, thus, becomes an epistemological lens through which this allochrony can be represented, observed and discussed, putting into perspective the relation between pasts and present.

It is in this idea of allochronism that genealogy emerges as a suggestive theoretical tool for the study of Andean cities. According to Foucault, genealogical studies offer a critical alternative for reviewing historic processes, that is, a way of studying how they develop without aspiring to the definition of an origin⁴⁰. The philosopher bases his idea of genealogy on Nietzsche's reaction to the idealisation of ‘origin’ as a state of unreal perfection. Genealogy, on the other hand, registers the singularity of facts beyond finality; it does not establish continuities in evolutionary lines, but finds the accidents and dispersions that give character to certain processes or results. According to Foucault, “what is found at the historical beginning of things is not the inviolable identity of their origin”, but rather, “it is the dissension of other things. It is disparity”⁴¹. In this sense, the present, a cultural construct, would not be the most recent state of a linear singular process, but the sum of a number of parallel temporalities and, therefore, narratives. Foucault recognises in Nietzsche that the destruction of a myth of origin also affects the ideal pursued in the narrative of the single 'perfect state', which, applied to the case of cities, will affect their identity, questioning the meaning of the spaces in which they are inserted. In the study of Andean cities, a genealogical reflection shall point to a reinterpretation of multicultural spaces from the perspective of converging temporalities, each one of them presenting its own epistemologies and ontologies. In some cases, it shall be found that there is a direct correlation in the transfer of use and meaning of specific urban elements, such as roads or irrigation systems, and in Santiago’s case, for example, the main square.

As the result of two different colonisation processes, the idea of a genealogy of Santiago presents a tantalising field of research for architectural historiography and theory. Reflecting this line of thought, an idea regarding cities put forward by Lynch comes to mind: “we can change our minds so that we enjoy the dynamics of the world”, but as a matter of will and power, “we can also change the world to correspond more closely to the structure of our minds”⁴². In Foucault's view, genealogy seeks, precisely, to represent the power dynamics at play “to reestablish the various systems of subjection”, unlike history’s “anticipatory power of meaning”, but rather “the hazardous play of dominations”⁴³. Resonating with both Lynch and Foucault, Tilley observes that since space is a multilayered social construct, culturally informed experience conditions the manner in which space is understood, “always shot through with temporalities, as spaces are always created, reproduced and transformed in relation to previously constructed spaces provided and established from the past. Spaces are intimately related to the formation of biographies and social relationships”⁴⁴. In this sense, historian Lewis Mumford observed that “no two cultures live conceptually in the same kind of time and space”⁴⁵, alluding to the epistemological-ontological disputes that accompany intercultural exchanges.

The effects of a new past for Santiago, in terms of how the ontological dimensions of its genesis, from Inka administrative centre to Spanish colonial city, affects the epistemological framework according to which its history should be re-appraised. Prior to their colonial overlap, Inkas and Spaniards had their own identities and dynamics. After their encounter, "the cultural entanglements of colonial encounters produce new kinds of societies that are the product of both colonizer and colonized but controlled entirely by neither"⁴⁶. Thus, the identity of the Andean city emerges as a dynamic process, the result of references provided by the relationship with the merging of spaces and converging temporalities. Present experience of the place is, therefore, a dialectical condition that builds upon both Indigenous and European rationalities. Although their presence has been acknowledged, Indigenous cultures have been made redundant, a thing of the past, a shortcoming of traditional Andean historiography that according to Kingman Garcés, has denied them of a relevant role in the present and the future of the urban experience⁴⁷. However, as observed by Wernke, while seeking to erase indigenous practices, the Spanish colonial project had to resonate with them, and, “in so doing, they (wittingly or unwittingly) partially reproduce the practices they intend to replace”⁴⁸. As emphasised by Foucault, the idea of ‘origin’ is an elusive one. More an ideal than a fact, a single point of origin is not able to grasp the complexities of colonial power dynamics. For Lynch, the historic condition of a city depends on the way in which we live it, how we piece and combine its pasts. From this perspective, the constitution of the contemporary Andean city would emerge from many origins and trajectories; a palimpsest of spaces, times, knowledge, reasons and aspirations. When combined, they offer a kaleidoscopic view of the present.

The present article sought to reflect on the ontological and epistemological implications of the rediscovery of an indigenous past for a Spanish colonial city. By commenting on the case of the new past of the city of Santiago, Chile, the links between an Inka administrative centre, and the urban fabric of the Spanish foundation of the city, reveal a break in the way in which the city had been studied, theorised and, ultimately, experienced. The idea of the city itself emerges as a symbol of the radical break in the trajectory of the territory and its indigenous cultures, marking a historical boundary that imposes a single narrative on the way in which both, urban space and historical time, dialogue in the construction of contemporary identities. The introduction of a genealogical approach sought to provide a critical tool that aims to repair the shortcomings of traditional urban historiography. Oversought in scholarly research in the past decades, the study of the colonial past of cities in the Andean territory allows to address current cultural conflicts by repairing the fractured temporality offered by the colonial historic narrative. The implications of this debate, for the present identity of Andean colonial cities, challenges traditional approaches to urban historiographic epistemology, critically reviewing and complementing it by an expanded ontological framework that brings indigenous identities to the foreground of the urban experience. 

This article was written as part of my current doctoral research in Architecture and Urban Studies at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, under the supervision of Professors Rodrigo Pérez de Arce (PUC) and José Canziani Amico (PUCP). Financial support for this study is provided by a grant from the Vicerrectoría de Investigación (VRI) of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.