Identity and architecture. Study of four ramadas between Concepción and Cobquecura

Abstract

We introduce this issue with a descriptive record of four ramadas. Ramada is the name given to the structures put up throughout the country each year during the week of the 18th September as an essential part of the celebrations to commemorate Chilean Independence. The name, which literally translates as ‘something made of branches’, arose from the nature of the structures- lightweight timber covered in leafy branches. The ramadas are elementary and ephemeral but nonetheless charged with meaning, harking back to celebrations and traditions at the birth of the republic, recalling links between city and countryside. The ramadas analysed in this record are all located along the route between Concepción and Cobquecura, a coastal town 125 km north of Concepción. Ramadas are put up in every Chilean city and town in order to commemorate the constitution of the first governing body (Junta de Gobierno), symbol of the new institutional character of governance following independence from Spain. Furthermore, every year (coinciding more or less with the start of spring), the ramadas also provide a space in which to revive traditional music and dances, particularly the cueca – the national dance of colonial origin representing the love conquest – whose festive rhythm mixes with the tropical cadences of the cumbia. In the ramadas people celebrate dancing and eating empanadas (a traditional meat pastry), anticuchos (kebabs), wine and chicha (a traditional alcoholic drink made from fermented grapes).