The Posada del Corregidor is a building located at the corner of Corregidor Zañartu and Esmeralda streets, in downtown

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. It was declared as a National Historic Monument in 1970.

History

The house was built in the Mid-18th Century, and in the 19th Century it was known as ''La Filarmónica'' because of the ballroom that was installed in 1830. In 1928 Darío Zañartu purchased the property to be used as a place of reminiscence of the

colonial era Colonial period (a period in a country's history where it was subject to management by a colonial power) may refer to: Continents *European colonization of the Americas * Colonisation of Africa * Western imperialism in Asia Countries * Col ...

. The name Posada del Corregidor was given by him in honor of the

corregidor Corregidor (, , ) is an island located at the entrance of Manila Bay in the southwestern part of Luzon in the Philippines, and is considered part of Cavite City and thus the province of Cavite. It is located west of Manila, the nation's capi ...

Luis Manuel de Zañartu, who was unrelated to the building. Due to the lobbying of Darío Zañartu, the municipality of Santiago created an adjacent small square and installed a fountain, which decorates the square. The Posada del Corregidor was the hub for the bohemian lifestyle in Santiago in the 1930s and the 1940s, housing a bar and ballrooms. The house was sold to the Banco del Trabajo in 1979, which undertook a complete restoration, and in 1985 was given in

commodate A commodate (), also known as loan for use, in civil law and Scots Law is a gratuitous loan; a loan, or free concession of anything moveable or immoveable, for a certain timeframe, on condition of restoring again the same individual after a cert ...

to the municipality of

, which used it as a

cultural center A cultural center or cultural centre is an organization, building or complex that promotes culture and arts. Cultural centers can be neighborhood community arts organizations, private facilities, government-sponsored, or activist-run. Africa * ...

to the spread of traditional customs, hosting activities ranging from

art exhibitions An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is occasionally true, it is stated to be a "permanen ...

to literary meetings. The second floor was damaged by the

2010 Chile earthquake The 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami () occurred off the coast of central Chile on Saturday, 27 February at 03:34:12 local time (06:34:12 UTC), having a magnitude of 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale, with intense shaking lasting for about ...

, leaving it unusable, which caused a restoration project that began at the end of 2012. The project includes the addition of a coffee shop and a house's basement art gallery.

Description

The two-storey building is a corner house with a rectangular plan. The building features a

cantilevered A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is unsupported at one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cantilev ...

full-length balcony supported by carved

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

ends of exposed wooden beams. The balcony is enclosed by an openwork wood railing and its 14 posts support the projecting roof. The original recessed corner entrance was enclosed by two rustic plank doors, which are separated by a stone corner column. The walls are of

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

and is roofed with Spanish colonial roof tiles.

References

{{coord, -33.43450, -70.64815, format=dms, type:landmark_region:CL, display=title Colonial architecture in Chile Buildings and structures in Santiago, Chile