Constructor: Jorge Carrasco
Engineer: Ruiz y Saavedra
Built area: 25 sqm
Dirección: Cementerio General, Recoleta, Santiago de Chile.
Photographer: Pablo Casals Aguirre.
XVI Bienal Internacional de Arquitectura de Buenos Aires, 2019. Selected.
The mausoleum is located in the historic part of the General Cemetery with a contemporary proposal, very respectful of its context: under the gardens, and away from any historicist manifestation, thus responding to the condition of a man of those times, like President Aylwin was. It is posed as a hidden place, full of natural light, for the visitors of the president’s mortal remains to be in harmony, trying to recognize President Aylwin’s personality: his austerity, his convictions, his faith, and his loyalty. On the ground floor, the project is formed in the superposition of a circle (the divine) and a square (the human), and it is built opening to natural light that sneaks, through the feature of the Cross and the five lucarnes, which symbolically represent the five children of the family Aylwin Oyarzún. The life of the president with his wife, Leonor, is represented by the triangle, which symbolizes the Holy Trinity, always present in their lives. The materiality is exposed concrete, sober material, bare, without any coatings. The undermined volume wants to represent the common good, so that the place remains a square, a condition that marked the life of the President Aylwin: the search for the public welfare.