Local Cultures – Global Spaces

Abstract

The paper develops the case of the Travesías of Amereida, which are poetic and pedagogical journeys that have been part of the curriculum at the Valparaíso School of Architecture and Design (e[ad] PUCV) since 1984. These voyages are a creative action that arises in response to the poem Amereida (portmanteau of America and the Aeneid), which raises questions about being American and the expanse of the continent. Every year, teachers and students from the school explore South America in light of these questions, reaching places and building ephemeral works of architecture and design. The paper analyzes a group of Travesias made to the territories of indigenous peoples in Brazil (Guaraní) and Chile (Mapuche). The paper reviews these cases to account for the pedagogical format of the journey, in which the experience of the trip, the observation of the place and the ways of living result in the invention of an architectural space sensitive to the worldview and cultural practices of those who inhabit the area. The construction processes also open an experience of integrating traditional crafts and local construction methods. The paper advances the Travesía as a poetic experience with a place-making potential that emerges from a new relationship with the continental extension different from the extraction of wealth, but from the sense of hospitality as a mode of care relation.