More than 2,300 people visited the United Nations Building in Chile, the home of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on Sunday, 28 May, on the occasion of Chilean Cultural Heritage Day 2017.
The building, which had not opened its doors to the public as a part of this event since 2009 due to reconstruction and remodeling works underwent after the earthquake that struck central Chile in 2010, admitted a total of 2,374 visitors, the largest number of people ever received on a single day by this United Nations regional commission.
The visiting public —mostly families and architecture students and teachers— showed a keen interest in touring the facilities of the building, which dates from 1966 and is considered by experts to be a landmark in modern Latin American architecture and one of the 20th century’s key reference points in that global movement.
Some 20 ECLAC officers served as volunteer guides and shared their personal experiences with the visitors. They were accompanied in that by architects from Chile’s National Council for Monuments and the International Committee for Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and Neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement (DOCOMOMO), who provided technical insights about the facility.
In tours lasting approximately one hour, the public were able to visit different highlights of the building designed by architect Emilio Duhart, such as the Peace Bell and the area where the flags of the ECLAC member States and associate members fly, the building’s symbolic entrance with its enormous concrete roof, its interior patios and main meeting rooms and its central spiral tower, designed in homage to pre-Columbian cultures.
The ECLAC building, inspired by the style of the renowned French urban planner Le Corbusier, boasts a vast structure of reinforced concrete supported by 28 pillars, exposed concrete and an interplay between volumes. The external walls of the spiral structure at its centre are engraved with symbols that portray the history and culture of Latin America. The top of the tower is impressive because of both the surrounding panoramic view and the acoustic effect of the echoes it creates. This part of the building houses the main conference rooms, the circular shape of which represents the equality of all the Commission’s member countries.
Heritage Day is celebrated on the last Sunday of May each year, and it has become Chile’s largest cultural celebration. To mark the occasion, more than 1,000 sites, buildings and monuments that are a part of the country’s history are opened to the public. ECLAC participated in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2017.
