THE PLURALITY OF A SINGULAR CONCEPT. “CHILEAN HOUSE: DOMESTIC IMAGES” (2020)

Abstract

Opened exactly three months after the massive demonstrations of October 18, 2019, and temporarily closed two months later due to another outbreak —the COVID-19 pandemic— the exhibition Chilean House: Domestic Images was on show at the La Moneda Cultural Center in between two states of exception. This text seeks to describe the criteria and decisions behind the exhibition's theme, its position concerning the debates about the ways of exhibiting architecture today, the selection of the pieces to be displayed, and the structure of the exhibit. The goal is twofold: on the one hand, to propose that the house in Chile entails a multiplicity of manifestations and diverse formats; and, on the other, that it can be understood as a cultural object instead of an architectural one. To strengthen these points, the exhibition set forth an alternative approach to the disciplinary discourses of architecture, as well as an uncommon way of exhibiting architecture in which diversity took priority over the comparative framework between the different cases exposed. In this way, the exhibition managed to establish a dialogue with the two exceptional events that framed the time in which it was opened to the public.