Old Stones and Cell Phones

Preface –

One substantial difference between the world at large and where we live in the U.S. Pacific Northwest is the fact that most of the rest of the world lives in the constant presence of, often in around and on top of, previous centuries of human habitation. That’s not saying the U.S. doesn’t have its share of old buildings. One can easily name quite a few: the Old State House and other revolutionary war buildings stand in Boston amidst skyscrapers 20 times their size, the French Quarter ages gracefully in New Orleans and the California Spanish missions rattle with every earthquake yet refuse to crumble. The rare older structures like the Anasazi Cliff dwellings in the Southwest are tourist destinations in themselves. In Seattle, however, one can go for weeks without any reminder of the long presence of Indian tribes and other peoples in the Puget Sound. Aside from the occasional woodcarving or plaque honoring Chief Sealth, we conduct our lives in recently built structures, the most “ancient” of which may date back to the 1898 Gold Rush.
Now, our kids at least are very happy about this situation…Sophie, for instance, repeatedly reminds me not to take her into any church which might have the remains of a dead person under the flagstones. On the other hand, some people (like me) actually like to set foot on the same stones those ex-humans trudged around on in life. Those old buildings provide a bridge from one time period to another and eventually to the present day. They have often passed from one use to another, from court to prison to sausage warehouse for example. More often than not they are made largely of stone since wood has the nasty tendency to burn, especially if you are bad at cooking sausages.

Old Things –

One set of stones that was especially important to the history of Santiago is the Cerro Santa Lucia. When Pedro de Valdivia was sent down from the North in 1541 to investigate settling this part of Chile one can well imagine that he was not very welcome among the locals. He chose to establish a camp on a small rocky outcrop called Huelén which peaks out above the broad plain of sediments laid down by the Mapocho river. There are a couple of evident reasons for this location. First it was several hundred feet high, and second it was small – about a city block in diameter and thus defensible. In fact, the Spanish were pretty much stuck defending this same hill for several decades and didn’t really venture far away from it until quite a bit later. Valdivia renamed it the Cerro Santa Lucia, perhaps in hopes of some help from upstairs in defending it against its angry neighbors and maybe because Saint Lucia is the patron saint of sight (to notice any imminent approach of the welcome wagon). Currently the Cerro is a lovely park with fountains and colonnades along with some remnants of fortifications near the top. It is criss-crossed with stairs, steps and goat paths that run every which way up down and around the rocky hill. M.C. Escher would be proud of the disorienting tangle of staircases that can be seen looking down from the top of the hill. I’m not so sure that maybe he wasn’t lost there for several hours as a small child… but the lush gardens and tinkling fountains of the Cerro Santa Lucia do not erase the image of some very nervous Spaniards peering down from its precarious ledges and wishing they were back in Barcelona with a nice glass of port wine romancing the señorita next door.
Another telling experience was the visit Sophie and I paid to the mansion of the Cousiños, a prominent industrial family in Santiago in the mid 1800s and one which still commands much respect today. As with much of the architecture and culture in Chile, the “palacio” takes its style from Europe: from France, Spain and Italy. The rich materials, artwork and furnishings; even the artisans who installed and created them were all imported from the Continent. Two things are clear in this grand building with its Carrara marble and Sevres porcelain, that there was no shame in having made an immense fortune in mining and agriculture and that Chilean society was firm in its resolve that it was not a backwater at the end of the world but rather as trendy and sophisticated as Paris or Madrid. The mansion was the first in Santiago to have central heating and a hydraulic lift, as well as gaslight throughout and eight bathrooms for seven bedrooms. Another item of interest is that , while Señor Cousiño started the construction of this sumptuous edifice, he died of tuberculosis before it was finished leaving his wife Isidora Goyenechea and seven young children to complete it after his death. Now if you’ve ever lived through a remodel then you probably have an idea that this is decidedly a nasty turn of events. If it were me, I’d be hopping mad…no matter how overwrought I might be at my husband’s untimely demise I’d probably aim more than a few colorful expletives at the dearly departed ‘s gravesite. To her credit, Isidora finished the palacio, took over the running of the coal mine, the silver mine and the vineyards and at her death donated her entire 14 million peso estate to charity. Personally, I think she probably did it to keep busy. Indeed the women in Santiago seem to often follow the Latin model of coolly keeping business and family running, while their spouses engage in less productive (at least not in terms of GNP) pursuits. Whether the younger generation will break this trend remains to be seen.

New Things –

Visiting some of these interesting historical sites is certainly something that I've anticipated on our trip, and I’m interested to see how the mood differs between countries like Chile, South Africa and Australia whose present structures date mostly from colonial times and places such as India and China who have been building things for thousands of years. It’s also fun to see how the needs or focus of the present day wrap themselves around what’s already standing or clear it away for a totally new start. In Santiago, for example, the presidential palace is called La Moneda because it is housed in the old Mint building. The former presidential building sustained heavy damage in the 1973 coup. It is hard to say whether the new site was chosen to signal political change, hope for fiscal prosperity or because mints are notoriously secure against things like, say, rocket propelled grenades.
Another interesting building is the headquarters for Entel, a telecommunications corporation. Not only is it the tallest building in Santiago, but it also is shaped almost precisely like a Nokia or Ericsson cell phone. (It would have been quite a trick if they had made it a flip phone). This could have been a mere gimmick except for the fact that Santiago runs on its cell phones. Not only its business people in suits, but everyone from taxi drivers to push cart owners run about with a phone glued to their ear. In the Providencia street scene, everyone but the stray dogs seems to have one. Mothers push strollers with one arm and chat on the cell with the other. When I asked a question about our hotel laundry service, the woman who tidies our apartment whipped out her cell phone to call the main office…notwithstanding that there was that “old-fashioned” kind of phone that plugs in to the wall within two feet of her at the time. It is completely appropriate then to consider the Entel building the symbol of modern Santiago!