PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

PÁG. 24 - 39

ISSN 0717 - 3997 / 0718 - 3607

Article from Fondecyt 1210592 “City and architecture on the Frontier: The Consolidation of the Nation-State in Araucanía, 1883-1974”,

nanced by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID), Chile.

Doctor en Arquitectura y Urbanismo

Profesor Asociado Facultad de Arquitectura, Construcción y Diseño

Universidad del Bío-Bío, Conceción, Chile

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4174-7421

gcerda@ubiobio.cl

Doctor en Historia,

Profesor Asociado, Centro de Investigaciones Territoriales

Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0896-6470

jaime.ores@ufrontera.cl

Doctor en Arquitectura

Profesor Titular Facultad de Arquitectura, Construcción y Diseño

Universidad del Bío-Bío, Conceción, Chile

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6628-6724

pfuentes@ubiobio.cl

https://doi.org/10.22320/07183607.2024.27.49.02

Recibido: 06-06-2023

Aceptado: 06-05-2024

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE:

THE CITY AS A STRATEGY

FOR TERRITORIAL

OCCUPATION

GONZALO CERDABRINTRUP 2

JAIME FLORESCHÁVEZ 3

PABLO FUENTESHERNÁNDEZ 4

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

PÁG. 24 - 39

ISSN 0717 - 3997 / 0718 - 3607

This paper analyzes the development of Pitrufquén (located in the Araucanía Region, Chile, and founded in 1897) from a

historical, territorial, urban, and architectural point of view. It is proposed that the city’s development is framed in a new moment,

where the Chilean State abandons military criteria and assumes economic-territorial factors where the railroad’s presence is

a determining factor. The choice of the site, its particular layout, and the development of its architecture are evidence of this

change. From the historical point of view, it is analyzed how, in Pitrufquén, the Mapuche society had cattle raising as the main

economic activity, as it had pastures to feed the cattle, the land was suitable for crops, and there was a vital ford to cross the

Toltén River. This strategic location was maintained and accentuated by the city’s founding and the railroad’s arrival in 1898,

turning the town into a railhead for progress towards the south of the country. In the case of the urban layout, its peculiarity was

addressed since, together with Lonquimay, these are the only sections in the La Araucanía region organized based on an ellipse,

which, in the case of Pitrufquén, also coexists with a checkerboard layout. The study analyzed its squares, diagonal avenues,

and the perimeter ring road. At an architectural level, the article explores the three layers or aspects of the city: The rst one

studies the wooden architecture with works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the second refers to public architecture,

represented by buildings such as the municipality, public services, the post ofce, and others; and a third layer addresses the

modern architecture, such as housing and stores from the period between 1940 and 1960.

Keywords: territory, urban history, urban fabric, wood architecture, modern architecture, cities.

El presente trabajo analiza el desarrollo de la ciudad de Pitrufquén (ubicada en la Región de La Araucanía, Chile, fundada en

1897) desde el punto de vista histórico, territorial, urbano y arquitectónico. Se plantea que el devenir de la ciudad se enmarca

en un nuevo momento en que el Estado chileno abandona criterios militares y asume factores económico-territoriales donde la

presencia del ferrocarril es determinante. La selección del lugar, su particular trazado, así como el desarrollo de su arquitectura,

son evidencias de este cambio. Desde el punto de vista histórico, se analiza cómo en el sitio de Pitrufquén, la sociedad mapuche

desarrolló la ganadería como actividad económica principal, al contar con praderas para alimentar el ganado, la tierra era

apropiada para los cultivos agrícolas y se encontraba allí un importante vado para cruzar el río Toltén. La situación de punto

estratégico, se mantuvo y acentuó con la fundación de la ciudad y la llegada de la vía férrea hacia el año 1898, convirtiéndose

el poblado en punta de riel, en el avance hacia el sur del país. En el caso de la traza urbana, se abordó su peculiaridad ya que,

junto a Lonquimay, constituyen en la región de La Araucanía las únicas tramas ordenadas en base a una elipse que, además

en el caso de Pitrufquén, convive con una traza de damero. En el estudio se analizaron sus plazas, avenidas diagonales y

la vía de circunvalación perimetral. En el plano arquitectónico, el artículo analiza las tres capas o aspectos de la ciudad: el

primero, estudia una de arquitectura en madera con obras de nes del siglo XIX y comienzos del XX; el segundo se reere a la

arquitectura pública, representada por edicios como, la municipalidad, los servicios públicos, el correo y otros, y el tercero capa

corresponde a la arquitectura moderna, como vivienda y comercio del período comprendido entre los años 1940 y1960.

Palabras clave: territorio, historia urbana, trama urbana, arquitectura en madera, arquitectura moderna, ciudades.

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

PÁG. 24 - 39

ISSN 0717 - 3997 / 0718 - 3607

Figure 1. Map of Chile with the location of Pitrufquén. Source: Bárbara Sáez Orrego 2023.

Figure 2. Map of Pitrufquén in the Araucanía, Chile, 1897. Source: Chilean Memory. “The state and municipal buildings plan”; 43 for the “Police

station”; 47 for the “garrison”; 115 for the “hospital”; 1 for the “slaughterhouse”; 119 for a “lazaretto” or quarantine station, as well as part of the

blocks 144 and 145, were declared “state properties” without dening their use; in a signicant space of the town was the railway station.

I. INTRODUCTION

During the second half of the 19

century, the Chilean

State’s occupation of the Araucanía was marked by

military, economic, social, and urban aspects. These

were mainly materialized by military fortifications,

especially between 1862 and 1883. After that, one of the

determining factors for the foundation and development

of urban centers was marked by economic-territorial

arguments, which were consolidated by the arrival of the

railway and its expansion to the south of the country. In

this context, Pitrufquén was founded in 1897, a state-

planned city in the heart of the Mapuche territory. This

article seeks to address Araucania’s urban development

by studying this city, its strategic location before and

after the occupation, and the imprint of its layout and

architectural development in the 20

century.

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

PÁG. 24 - 39

ISSN 0717 - 3997 / 0718 - 3607

As Wladimir Antivil (2017) has pointed out, in the Araucanía,

it is possible to see three determining factors in its

conguration and development: The installation of several

lines of fortications, the construction of the railway, and

the division of rural land. “These can be dened as the

built physical acts that largely determined the shape and

physiognomy of Araucanía” (Antivil, 2017, p. 9), noting that

“the lines of the forts and the railway stand out because

these structures established most cities... the railway

generating a new north-south vertical trunk, consolidating

urban settlements” (Antivil, 2017, p. 9). The case of Pitrufquén

fell into this logic, hence its interest as a case study.

It was hypothesized that Pitrufquén shows a new moment

where a State and bureaucracy with greater capacity to

intervene with an urban project in a recently incorporated

territory is observed. This is expressed in the choice of where

to install the “city” that, far from the military criteria typical of

the late 19

century, privileged its strategic location for the

development and economic articulation of the railway. This

strong State can also be glimpsed in the type of urban layout.

Unlike the traditional colonial checkerboard cities, a radial

urban model was used that sought to establish its presence

and consolidate the occupation of Mapuche space through

a new order that was planned, with limited borders and a

dened gure, establishing a new way of city-making in the

Frontier or the Araucania territory (Figure 1 and Figure 2).

II.THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The State, the territory, and the city

From a theoretical point of view and the perspective that

the research is addressed, at least four concepts were

considered fundamental for a thorough understanding

of the phenomenon under study: Geographical space,

territory, State, and modern project.

Geographical space is not immutable (Craib, 2004) but

rather a social construct resulting from the historical

processes in which internal and external elements act as

articulators and disarticulators. For Santos (1990), space

constitutes a field of forces of unequal acceleration that

particularizes places, changing with historical processes.

Therefore, it can be assumed that “space is a social act, a

social factor and a social instance” (Santos, 1990, p. 146).

This long-term dimension of the territory, ”overloaded as it

is with numerous fingerprints and past readings,” makes it

seem more like a “palimpsest” (Corboz, 2004). The capitalist

mode of production uses the existing space (waterways,

sea, land, railways, air), disintegrates it, and restructuring

the previous organization creates a new space, a produced

space (Lefebvre, 2013).

The meaning of territory is the space given by the people

who exercise sovereignty over it. It is possible to think that

this does not constitute a xed fact. History leaves its mark

on the territory, and in the case of the Araucanía, the city

constituted one of the most remarkable marks, product and

producer of a profound State-led territorial transformation

from the second half of the 19

century.

Charles Tilly (1990) suggests that the association between

State and city constitutes a binomial present throughout, at

least, the last millennium in Western history, in such a way

that it is possible to think that the establishment of urban

centers in the Araucanía is directly linked to the need to

establish “State” or that the installation of the Chilean State

is consubstantial to the foundation of cities in that territory.

In this sense, the foundation of cities is an expression and

concretization of the idea that “the State is made by doing”

(Bourdieu, 2014, p. 175), making it possible to increase

statehood, that is, the State’s ability to be a State (Oszlak,

2012).

In the Araucanía, “the city, as the materialization of the

modern project, is the space where the political power

and the commercialization and production centers are

established territorially” (Alvarado, 2015, p. 111). Alvarado

conceptualizes these specic urban formations as “colonial

cities” where ”colonial relations based on economic, political,

cultural, class and socio-racial hierarchies operate” (Alvarado,

2015, p. 114).

During the second half of the 19

century, the Frontier, as the

Araucanía is also called, underwent intense transformations

that substantially modied the physical, political, social, and

economic landscape (Pinto, 2021; Correa, 2021; Marimán,

2019; Flores, 2013). By 1900, the change in understanding the

Mapuche territory and space was remarkable, accentuated

further during the 20

century. The Chilean nation-state

deployed dierent devices and tools on the territory that

made this mutation possible. Religious missions, military

expeditions, transport and communication routes, the arrival

of the “new inhabitants,” the arrival of national institutions

and ocials, and the foundation of cities also had an

impact. This task of building a national territory led to the

need to incorporate indigenous spaces into this new logic.

A process that, at the same time, dismantled the existing

“Mapuche territoriality” and sought to build the new “Chilean

territoriality” where cities were decisive (Alvarado, 2015;

Flores, 2019; Escalona & Olea-Peñaloza, 2022).

The Mapuches resisted the state’s presence, materialized

in forts and missions. However, the indigenous military

defeat between 1881 and 1883 left fewer obstacles to

establishing and developing urban centers, which were

decisive in developing an agricultural economy. This dynamic

of occupation and transformation demanded appropriate

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

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ISSN 0717 - 3997 / 0718 - 3607

5 Malón was a surprise Mapuche attack on a fort or a ranch.

6 Wallmapu refers to the entire Mapuche territory comprising the Gulumapu or Western lands, including the Araucanía and the Puelmapu, and the

Eastern lands on the other side of the Andes Mountain Range.

communication and transport routes for the new requirements.

The railway became a gravitational element for articulating and

transferring people and goods from the region to the rest of the

country (Flores, 2020; Flores, 2012).

III. CASE STUDY

The study analyzes the case of Pitrufquén, founded in 1897 in the

Araucanía Region, Chile. This city demonstrates the relevance of

the economic logic that displaced the military one, manifested

in the absence of barracks, a moat, or another defensive

measure, and its acquired relevance as a railway precinct.

The city of Pitrufquén has an oval urban design. This elliptical

city represents a unique setup in Chile, as cities mostly follow

the Spanish orthogonal grid model in checkerboard format,

implemented in other cities of the Araucanía region.

IV. METHODOLOGY

The methodology used in this study has a combination of

historical and urban-architectural research methods. That is to

say, from a historical perspective, a heuristic methodology was

used for the location, collection, and analysis of primary and

secondary documentary sources, in addition to a critical reading

of the consulted bibliography. From an urban-architectural

point of view, the historical and current planimetry available was

analyzed: Pitrufquén, its urban conditioning factors, location,

placement, and morphology, analyzing its architecture in

dierent periods, the materiality of the work, and the diverse

expressions of the city.

The resources used in the study are planimetry, photos, and

sketches.

V. RESULTS

Pitrufquén and the Mapuche territory

During the colonial era, Mapuche society had livestock farming

as its leading economic activity. The military malones5 on

the Spanish forts gave way to attacks for economic purposes,

resulting in raids on the ranches, where cattle were sought as

booty. From the middle of the 17

century until the second half

of the 19

century, this practice marked the economy, society,

and territorial logic of the Mapuches in the Wallmapu6.

This dynamic led to a substantial expansion towards the

Puelmapu, first in search of bighorn cattle. When this was

exhausted, the destination of the attacks was the ranches

of the Buenos Aires, Mendoza, and Córdoba provinces, from

where many horses and cattle were driven.

The knowledge of geography, the control of the Pampas

watering holes, the Andes Mountain Range openings,

the fords, and the prairies in the Araucanía became a

central aspect. In this context, Pitrufquén was a strategic

site because it had meadows to feed livestock, fertile

agricultural land, and a location alongside the main ford to

cross the mighty Toltén River. Indeed, this was why Pinolef,

son of the cacique Paillaguñ, who controlled the Pucón

mountain range gap, moved to Pitrufquén and became

a wealthy farmer and rancher (Guevara, 1912). In 1860,

Pitrufquén was visited by the German traveler Paul Treutler,

who highlighted the fertility of the valley: “Where beans,

corn, wheat, and other grains are produced in abundance,

quite a few animals are fattened and where important

establishments could be raised” (Treutler, 1958, p. 167).

Highlighting its strategic location, he points out that “this

reservation is, without dispute, the most suitable point for

trading speculation between the Calle-Calle and Toltén

rivers” (Treutler, 1958, p. 167). Pitrufquén was a strategic

point for the State in controlling and dismantling the

Mapuche territory in re-articulating and designing the new

Chilean territoriality, which had founding towns and railway

development as its fundamental pillars.

Pitrufquén and the foundation of the town

Assuming that a town is born when the State officially

approves its plan makes it impossible to specify the date

of its foundation. Treutler (1958) visited the place in 1860,

noting that “Pitrufquén was one of the most important

villages in the Araucanía, and had about four hundred

souls” (Treutler, 1958, p. 387). Its cacique (leader) was Felipe

Paillalef, who, in his rucahue, next to the rukas (houses)

built in the traditional indigenous style, had a house built

“entirely in the European way, with doors and windows,

it had been made by two Chilean carpenters and a

blacksmith” (Treutler, 1958, p. 393).

In 1896, the railway line was being laid. They were

busily working on clearing forests and constructing

embankments and stations. This task was intensified the

following year when the work on the bridge over the Toltén

began. By that date, in Pitrufquén, there was already “an inn

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

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Figure 3. Pitrufquén railway station, c.1900. Source: Images of Chile from 1900 (n.d.).

Table 1. The population of Chile’s towns, 1875-1992. Source:

National Statistics Institute [INE], Central Statistical Ofce (1904),

INE (1992), INE (2019).

Census Urban population of Pitrufquén

1895 2.376

1907 3.271 (Lisperguer)

1920 4.038

1930 4.024

1940 5.193

1952 4.533

1960 6.472

1970 7.770

1982 9.437

1992 10.491

2002 13.420

2017 16.531

and granary” (Verniory, 2005, p. 444). The Toltén Bridge was

a significant engineering project. At 450 meters in length,

it comprised nine 50-meter metal sections resting on two

abutments and eight pillars. As for the Malleco viaduct

and the Quillem, Cautín, and Quepe bridges, Creusot was

the engineer in charge of the final assembly. In October

1898, the Toltén Bridge was completed and delivered. The

Temuco-Pitrufquén line was inaugurated by the President

of the Republic, Federico Errázuriz, on November 13th

that year (Verniory, 2005, p. 483). With these milestones,

Pitrufquén was united to the North with the rest of the

country and was the railhead for the progress to the South

(Figure 3).

When reconstituting the dynamics of the urban population

of Pitrufquén from 1895 to 2017, the results are as follows

(Table 1). The figures in Table 1 show that the 1895 census

identifies a “village” with 2,376 inhabitants. This data is

associated with the bridge’s construction over the Toltén

River and the extension of the railway line to the south.

In the first half of the 20

century, the urban population

experienced an initial growth that can be associated with

the installation of state institutions and bureaucracy,

private institutions linked to religious orders, or a migratory

process attracted by the area’s incipient agricultural and

forestry activity, which found in this town a center for

provisions, and a place to store and transfer its production

using the railway. In 1952, the fall in population compared

to the previous census is attributed to the vitality acquired

by other urban centers in the region, such as Temuco to the

north, the consolidation of Gorbea to the south, and the

dynamism acquired by Villarrica, due to the promotion of

tourist activity and administrative autonomy in the 1930s.

However, the data in Table 1 show how the city of Pitrufquén

consolidated significantly from the 1960s.

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

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ISSN 0717 - 3997 / 0718 - 3607

Figure 4. Traditional checkerboard patterns observed in the cities of Angol, Lautaro, Traiguén, and Temuco, compared to those of Pitrufquén and

Lonquimay, unique radial patterns existing today. Source: Chilean Memory (n.d.).

The urban plot of Pitrufquén

The towns founded in the Araucanía replicated the

checkerboard layout in other Chilean cities (Guarda, 1978).

However, three cities escaped this rule: Villa Queule,

whose plan dates from 1914; Villa Portales in 1898; and

Lisperguer in 1897, which later changed its name to

Pitrufquén (Figure 4)

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

PÁG. 24 - 39

ISSN 0717 - 3997 / 0718 - 3607

Figure 5. Pitrufquén today: 1) Plaza Pedro Montt; 2) Plaza Los Héroes; 3) Avda. Francisco Bilbao; 4) Avda. de Circunvalación Pedro León Gallo;

5) Railway premises; 6) Railway track and railway bridge; 7) Pan-American Highway and road bridge; 8) Municipality, Post Ofce and Public

Services; 9) Fire station and cinema; 10) Old railway station (demolished); 11) College of the Dominican Mothers; 12) Casa de altos (Figure 7); 13)

Wooden housing (Figure. 8); 14) Robin’s Hardware Store (Figure 10); 15) CORVI complex for police ofcers. Source: Bárbara Sáez Orrego, 2023.

Rucahue Sector

Cacique Paillalef

Current central Trade

and services area

Station

Neighborhood

Ultra-Station

Neighborhood

Toltén River

In the Araucanía region, cities “were transformed, to a

greater or lesser extent, into the figuration of colonial

power and administration, which through capitalist and

bureaucrat actors – under the European imaginary of

material and spiritual progress - modified the topography,

the circuits of connectivity, the hierarchies of power, and the

representations of the occupied territory” (Alvarado, 2015, p.

107). In Pitrufquén, the State marked presence through its

institutions, bureaucracy, and the urban and architectural

materiality that this entailed. The urban center was the place

par excellence where it was materialized to increase the levels

of statehood over the population and the territory. There

were schools, a civil registry, a court, land and colonization

offices, police, notaries, and departmental and municipal

offices, among others. There were also fire stations, sports

and social clubs, political parties, cinemas and theaters,

newspapers, and everything typical of urban life (Figure 5).

The urban plot of Pitrufquén is particular because it is a

planned city using a radial model rarely used in the south

of the country. It is organized around an oval intersected

by two diagonal avenues, in the center of which the main

square is located. The urban presence of the railway and its

station, which crosses the city’s elliptical plot in one of its

thirds, is of particular interest, configuring a second square

in front of it.

The oval perimeter avenue configures a poignant and clear

edge of the city, especially towards the southern sector.

Even if its layout is irregular in certain sections, the idea

of forming a landscaped and wooded avenue prevails, a

public promenade located initially at two points with the

railway. This intersection was widened with the subsequent

construction of the Pan-American highway that crosses the

city on the north-south axis.

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

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Figure 6. Pitrufquén Main Square. Source: Gonzalo Cerda Brintrup, personal les, 2023.

The incorporation of two diagonal avenues at the

intersection of the city’s central square should be

understood as an idea of order that characterizes the

plot. The diagonal avenues hierarchize the central

square, providing unusual perspectives for a Chilean

city, organized from the colonial idea in orthogonal

checkerboard plots (Figure 6). However, incorporating

an oval edge and diagonals does not mean leaving

behind the checkerboard’s reticular weave. This persists

in the city’s design, making the grid layout, diagonals,

and perimeter oval, compatible.

Incorporating the railway into the city’s layout brought

other urban phenomena. The presence of the railway

station and its depots strained the commercial

growth of the city center, which entailed the city’s

development from the center to the station, called the

“Station neighborhood.” In the case of Pitrufquén, the

formation of the ”Ultra station neighborhood” defined

the sector that goes beyond the station and that had its own

characteristics.

The location of railway stations in most of the cities of the

Araucanía produced a phenomenon: the transformation of

the line that connects the central square and the train station

into the city’s most important commercial street. In the case

of Pitrufquén, it is Francisco Bilbao Street around which the

so-called “casas de alto” grew, a typology that incorporated

commerce on the first level and housing on the second.

That is to say, the city’s commercial life was associated with

central living, something that can be observed to this day.

The commercial houses were inscribed in a continuous

facade, with which the central plot of the city was spatially

conformed. It is essential to highlight that the ”casa de altos”

typology produced a frequented and active city, even on

weekends, when commerce does not work, enhancing family

life on the upper floors. This urban quality is still maintained

in Pitrufquén (Figure 7).

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

GONZALO CERDA-BRINTRUP, JAIME FLORES-CHÁVEZ, PABLO FUENTES-HERNÁNDEZ

REVISTA URBANO Nº 49 / MAYO 2024 - OCTUBRE 2024

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Figure 7. Casa de altos in Pitrufquén: rst-level store; second-level housing. Source: Gonzalo Cerda Brintrup, personal les, 2023.

In the peri-urban center, remnants of rural life can be found

towards the interior of the plot, with houses with signicant

yards, orchards, front yards, and even small agricultural

facilities such as chicken coops, pigsties, wheat granaries, and

other agricultural products that consider the rural occupation

around the city.

The “Station Neighborhood” has, in the case of Pitrufquén,

a recognized center, the station’s square, called “Plaza Los

Héroes.” This was the city’s public reception space when the

railway was still running. Today, this space has changed, but

its importance has not decreased. Nowadays, the spatial and

commercial tension between Station Square and Central

Square, or Manuel Montt Square, vitalizes the economic and

urban life of the city.

On the other side of the railway line, the “Ultra station”

neighborhood traditionally housed industrial and semi-

industrial activities associated with the railway. Warehouses,

workshops of various kinds, small agricultural facilities,

housing, and neighborhood stores continue to operate,

although much less than compared to the railroad boom

from the beginning of the 20

century to the 1970s.

The city’s urban growth also shifted towards the “Ultra

station” neighborhood, with important State-built housing

complexes (Housing Corporation, CORVI) for police ocers

built in the 1950s and that are currently in full use (Vergara et

al., 2021).

Architectural heritage of Pitrufquén

The radial urban model applied in Pitrufquén has a correlate.

On the one hand, with the wooden construction tradition of

the architecture of southern Chile, and on the other, with the

emergence of modern architecture and new materials such

as reinforced masonry and concrete, both by individuals and

the State. This is predominantly expressed in buildings for

institutions. In this way, its urban layout is being completed

PITRUFQUÉN, CHILE: LA CIUDAD COMO ESTRATEGIA DE OCUPACIÓN TERRITORIAL

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Figure 8. Wooden architecture in Pitrufquén. Source: Gonzalo Cerda Brintrup, personal les, 2023.

with architecture, rst in wood and then in modern

materials, many of which constitute today part of the

country’s southern architectural heritage.

In the city of Pitrufquén, at least three layers of architectural

heritage are noticeable: its wooden architecture, in

particular, housing and its insertion into the so-called “wood

culture” in southern Chile; public architecture represented

by buildings such as the municipality, the post oce, the

re station, and the cinema; and modern architecture with

notable examples of commercial buildings and housing

from the 1940-1960 period.

Wooden Architecture

The so-called “wood culture” was used in the south of Chile

from the mid-19

century, especially with the migrations

of Chileans and foreigners. Pitrufquén is an area abundant

with countless native species, such as oak, larch, luma,

and mañío, among others. In this environment, it was

natural that intensive use of this material arose to produce

housing, religious, industrial, school, and institutional

buildings and develop everyday items such as household

utensils and boats of all sizes. This material penetrated the

daily and constructive culture of the south of the country

to the point that it is possible to state that, in southern

Chile, wood, more than a constructive material, is a cultural

material (Cerda, 2022a) (Figure 8).

The architectural development of the Araucanía,

particularly that of Pitrufquén, is inscribed in this

environment. Thus, in this material, it is possible to nd

countless examples of housing, public buildings, shops,

and agricultural and industrial architecture in the city.

The wooden reinterpretation of the European reference

models that guide the city’s architectural production is of

interest. Thus, supported by catalogs, photographs, and

construction manuals, the local carpenters reproduced,

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Figure 9. Public Services Building and Municipality of Pitrufquén. 1974. Source: Gonzalo Cerda Brintrup, personal les, 2023.

in their way, the models contributed by the migrant

population. The result is sober, austere wooden architecture,

which has the rst purpose of setting oneself up in the

territory and constitutes an important architectural heritage

of the country.

Public architecture

The state and the public-private development of

institutions resort to modern architecture. Between the

1940s and 1970s, schools were built, such as the Dominican

Sister’s School, the Fire Service building that included a

cinema, and the town hall building - the municipality -

which also incorporated other public services.

The Public Services building symbolized the State’s

presence in the city and became one of the most signicant

works of countless cities and towns in the Araucanía

(Parraguez & Escobar, 2022).

These works, for the most part, are located in front of the main

square and unite several organizations such as the General

Treasury of the Republic, Internal Revenue Service, Chilean

Mail Service, and the Illustrious Municipality with its dierent

departments. The constructions represent the modernizing

action and presence of the State in the country. It is common

for its architecture to be ascribed to the Modern Movement

in its dierent periods. The hypothesis is that modern

architecture represents a modernizing state that seeks to

reach the whole population with its institutions and services

(Figure 9).

Modern architecture

In the decades of 1940-1950, a repertoire of works that

could be classified as modern architecture emerged in the

city. This was architecture assimilable to the so-called “first

modernity,” which emerged strongly in Chile from the 1940s

and in the south of the country was marked by the 1939

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Figure 10. Modern architecture in Pitrufquén. Robin’s Hardware Store. Source: Gonzalo Cerda Brintrup, personal les, 2023.

Chillán (8.0°R) and the 1960 Valdivia (9.5°R) earthquakes

(Cerda, 2022b). This architecture was mainly used to build

stores, housing, and institutional works. The production of

modern “high-rise houses” is particularly interesting. This

combines commercial and housing programs the city had

developed for the central plot, initially in wood.

This architecture is inserted in the pre-existing plot and

a continuous facade, contributing to the conformation

of well-configured edges and a continuous urban space

(Figure 10).

VI. DISCUSSION

In the second half of the 19th century, the Chilean state

began occupying and transforming Araucania’s indigenous

territory. In this strategy, the cities constituted ideological

and material support for the state’s arrival in the territory.

If, at first, the military criteria were predominant in

determining the location of urban centers, after 1883,

it gave space to those linked to economic reasons, the

case where the foundation of the town of Pitrufquén was

inserted into. However, it was already a strategic point in

the Mapuche territorial logic previously due to its ford and

the geomorphological and soil quality characteristics of

the plain on the southern bank, which had led important

caciques to settle there (Guevara, 1912; Antivil, 2017; and

Flores, 2023).

By the end of the 19

century, those who designed the

railway route identified Pitrufquén as the most suitable

place to bypass the Toltén River using a bridge and in the

plain to trace a town that did not contemplate a military

enclosure or a moat, but did have blocks and sites for the

installation of a series of state institutions. A territory as a

palimpsest, a historical process, with old and new vestiges

that imprint the places, singularizing them (Corboz, 2004).

The reading of the written and cartographic sources

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7 this positive assessment on the part of the Mapuches on the arrival of the railway to La Araucanía was expressed by Wladimir Antivil during

the presentation of his paper “The construction of the territory between Malleco and Cautín during the advance of the State in La Araucanía:

reections on four cartographies (1869-1888)”. 2nd Seminar Territory, City, and Architecture in the Araucanía 19th – 20th Centuries. University of

Bío Bío, Concepción, November 6th and 7th, 2023.

confirms that Pitrufquén, unlike other Araucania towns,

was not configured as a military fort, but was the result of

a new stage of state action, where the railway marked the

hierarchization of space and its stations constituted the

gateway of the towns.

It is essential to point out that the installation of towns

and cities in the Araucanía represented a territorial

occupation strategy different from that developed by

the original Mapuche people, characterized by the

installation of dispersed housing in the territory, mainly

following the river (Antivil, 2017; Flores, 2021). On the

contrary, the Chilean occupation was carried out through

cities that followed the railway line, first in a north-south

direction and later in the opposite direction along branch

lines. This established a different occupation logic from

the pre-existing one that, in some cases, was resisted

by members of the Mapuche community. However, it

was also positively valued, given the railway’s modern

communication and transport facilities7.

Regarding the study and analysis made, it is argued

that urban centers in the Araucanía constitute one of

the clearest expressions of the state action, of the need

to increase the levels of statehood, the spatiality of

colonialism, and a manifestation of the interdependence

of the State and the city that was projected until today.

Thus, the city, as a state artifact, not only accounts for

the emergence of the urban phenomenon but also

constitutes one of the fundamental aspects in the

redesign of the ancient indigenous territory (Alvarado,

2015; Escalona & Olea-Peñaloza, 2022; Flores, 2012; Flores

2020 and Flores 2023).

In the case of Pitrufquén, as is also the case of Lonquimay,

the use of a radial model for the urban plan can be

associated with the search for an idea of order, the

establishment of a well-defined plan, of known edges that

clearly define what is city and what is countryside.

Without there being a specific document that explains

the reason for the implementation of the radial model in

the city’s fabric, the case of Pitrufquén may correspond

to a current in vogue towards the end of the 19

and

the beginning of the 20

century, based on European

reference models, both for the city and its urban

plots, as for architecture. These models are reworked,

reinterpreted, and adapted to the local reality. It has

been stated that in the configuration of cities in “Latin

America, since its inception, there is a symbiosis and

superposition of cultures, the abrupt transplantation, the

chronological mismatch, the more or less slow adaptation

to imported ideas, of new solutions full of spontaneity

and inventiveness…” there being “the common thread in

the effects of European urban culture on Latin American

societies (Andreatta, 2007, p.14).

It is possible to hypothesize that Haussmann’s ideas for

-century Paris, which inuenced the development and

renovation of European cities such as Vienna, Brussels, or

Florence and even North American cities such as Chicago

through the City Beautiful movement, may have been an

antecedent of the radial outline of a new-plan city such as

Pitrufquén in southern Chile.

VII. CONCLUSIONS

It is concluded that Pitrufquén constitutes a signicant

example of the Chilean nation-state’s occupation and

transformation process of the indigenous territory of the

Araucanía. In this sense, the city and the State consider

each other indispensable in dominating and controlling a

border area. That is why Pitrufquén is the symbolic, material,

and cultural expression of an urban society of the late 19

century that moves on indigenous lands.

Regarding the territory, the city represents the new territorial

logic implemented by the Chilean State that diers from

the one that the Mapuches had elaborated, a territory

without cities. The choice of the city’s location was strategic.

The ford allowed crossing the mighty Toltén River, the

intersection point of the main indigenous roads that crossed

the Araucanía from north to south and east to west. In this

sense, new technologies such as the railway are present in

the origin and development of the city through the railway

bridge, the station, and the economic dynamics of the city

and the rural environment.

Regarding the urban plot, the conguration of the elliptical

outline of the city, the presence of diagonal avenues, the

incorporation of squares, the checkerboard layout inserted

in the ellipse, and the presence of the railway are especially

notable. The urban layout is peculiar in developing cities

in Chile and the Araucanía, representing one of the few

examples that advance from the traditional checkerboard

pattern to other more complex urban layouts.

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Regarding architectural development, at least three

architectural layers are evident in the city: wooden architecture,

with notable examples of homes and commercial buildings

that are part of southern Chile’s so-called “wood culture”; public

architecture, represented by buildings such as the municipality

and public services; and modern architecture, with notable

examples of modern “high-rise houses” where commercial and

housing programs are combined.

For these reasons, Pitrufquén represents a paradigmatic

settlement of insertion and territorial occupation according

to the State logic in the Araucanía towards the end of the 19

century, testing a conguration and peculiar elliptical radial

urban plot that characterizes it compared to other cities and

towns in the south of Chile.

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