2022
MCHAP
BARON LOOKOUT BUILDING
Mathias Klotz
Valparaiso, Chile
January 2019
PRIMARY AUTHOR
Mathias Klotz Germain
CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
Mathias Klotz Architects
CLIENT
Gerardo Valdes
PHOTOGRAPHER
Roland Halbe
OBJECTIVE
The commission was to develop a set of 220 apartments in formats ranging from 36 m2 to 160m2, in order to have a diverse offer in area, program and price, which would respond to the needs of first and second homes, for different family formats, or individual residents.
Our objective was to understand the physical, economic and social context of the commission and its surroundings, in order to be able to visualize development opportunities that would add value to the complex and quality of life for residents and neighbors.
We also wanted to take advantage of the potential of being located next to the Paseo Mirador Baron, which is accessed from the elevator of the same name, and to be able to give it continuity, establishing our building as a destination and auction of this tourist route.
CONTEXT
ValparaÃso is the main port of Chile, and its history is marked by having been the most important port in the South Pacific, before the opening of the Panama Canal.
The city was also the main port of entry for migrants who came from Europe, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries and the beginning of the 20th.
The traces of the German, Italian, English and Croatian communities are clearly marked on its hills.
This is why its architecture is very particular and it has meant that it was declared a World Heritage City in 2003.
ValparaÃso also presents an outstanding series of public buildings and housing complexes of modern architecture, made during the 20th century, among which the Post Office Building (1936), the Victoria Theater (1937), the Puerto Station (1937), the Italian School (1940), the Quebrada Marquez Housing Complex, the Lifetime Cooperative Building (1947), the Mauri Theater (1951), the Ignacio Zenteno Housing Complex (1961), and the Lord Cochrane Housing Complex (1961)
Due to its uneven topography, the way to connect the plan of the city where commerce is established, with the hills, where housing is established, is through a system of 31 elevators that form a fabric that allows access to a series of walks horizontal at mid-level, those that function as viewpoints of this kind of amphitheater that looks out over the sea.
Some examples are, promenade Atkinson, Yugoslav, and Gervasoni.
PERFORMANCE
The Mirador Baron Building is a set of six buildings built in what was the ValparaÃso Railway Hospital, which had ceased to function as such in 1985, and closed permanently in 2003.
The project recovers the building of the old Hospital, in an attempt to rescue the memory of what was built in the neighborhood, transforming it into apartments, and builds four overlapping buildings on the land facing it, towards the sea, below the level of the old hospital. , creating a public promenade on its roof, which is the extension of the Mirador del Ascensor Baron promenade, in the manner of the characteristic promenades such as the Yugoslav.
The apartments on the lower floor of the Old Hospital Building open onto a garden terrace that covers the parking lots.
The four volumes that are located under the Paseo Mirador are separated from the hill by access bridges that directly connect the parking lots with the entrances to the apartments, allowing cross ventilation of the apartments, and natural lighting of the parking lots.
On one side of the hospital and at street level, the fifth volume is installed, of the same height as this, serving as access to the complex with a restaurant program that serves as an articulator and that separates the public circulation from that of the residents.
The architecture of the complex takes as a reference the Zenteno housing complex, by the architect Oscar Zacarelli, built on the same hill in 1961, achieving a grain capable of integrating into the city.
