Intrinsic juxtapositions on the façade of the Alhambra Theater, Taltal, Chile

Abstract

Taltal’s Alhambra Theater has a relevant historical and patrimonial meaning for the city. Its façade has a heterogeneous architectural language implicit in its proportions, entrances, and ornamental elements, configuring a unitary volumetric expression. Several studies and publications have revealed its history, materiality, and urban image, generating technical reports about its current state, with critical surveys of the property and proposals for alternative uses with its rehabilitation. However, it is interesting to address its façade's specificities through an exploratory analysis. This research focuses on intrinsically unveiling, from its volumetry, a study of the layout and size of architectural programs juxtaposed on the same plane, such as a pastry shop and a family residence. Through observation, comparison, and analysis of the geometric expressions in the building’s facade, possibilities of investigating the architectural singularities that reveal and unify it are opened, which allows finding contents in the proportions and arrangement of the openings as the structural geometries of the building’s cross-section are redrawn and enunciated. Similarly, the integrated uses extend and amplify the image of its rectangular façade towards the surrounding public space, which complements the Theater’s activities, generating diverse vertical symmetries on the Georgian style façade, structuring a unit recognizable by its magnitude, which contributes to its valorization as a Historical Monument.