Three silences within the School of Architecture and Urban Planning of the Universidad de Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship

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Nicolás Verdejo Bravo

Abstract

The impact of the Pinochet dictatorship on Chilean higher education was extensive, resulting in radical changes in all universities and their administrations. The Universidad de Chile, a public and state-owned institution, was one of the most affected. Its School of Architecture and Urban Planning (FAU) was a particular object of an aggressive intervention, which meant the disappearance of faculty and students and the complete relocation of its campus. Although the school's institutional, academic, and curricular development under the regime has been generously described in canonical accounts, the impact this context had on pedagogical spaces and its communities has remained silent. After analyzing administrative documents and archives, this text reveals three stories in which various expressions of authoritarian power were exercised over workers, students, and faculty at the FAU. These cases demonstrate the points of friction between the school's reality and everything that occurred outside its walls during one of the most complex periods in Chilean history. 

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Author Biography

Nicolás Verdejo Bravo, Pennsylvania State University

Nicolás Verdejo is an architectural historian, Fulbright scholar and a Ph.D. Candidate in Architecture and instructor at the Stuckeman School, Penn State University. He holds a master's degree in architecture from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a bachelor's in architecture from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. His research focus explores the relations between architecture, pedagogy, and politics, especially under authoritarian regimes. He is an author of publications such as the book Cambiar de vida. La escuela de arquitectura de la UCV y la política chilena entre 1967 y 1973 (LOM, 2022), co-author in the book Neoliberalism and Urban Development in Latin America: The Case of Santiago (Routledge, 2017, Boano y Vergara-Perucich eds), and an editor in Santiago Babylon (ariztiaBOOKS, 2017). He has taught at several Chilean universities. Nicolás is also a comic-book artist and an illustrator.