LUCIANO KULCZEWSKI
Today i will talk about a very important character for me, because
contributed to the modern architecture in Chile, and planned many buildings
that for me are beautiful.
Luciano Kulczewski was a important chilean architect and painter, that
introduced the Modern Movement in our contry, and the greatest exponent of Art
Noveau in Chile.
Kulczewski was born in Temuco, in 1896, son of Luisa García Rodriguez, born
in Concepcion, and Boleslao Eugenio Kulczewski, a french engineer born in
Algiers in 1849 and descendant of Antoni Kulczewski, a Polish civil engineer
and member of the French Foreign Legion in the campaign of Algeria in 1831.
He made his secondary studies at Instituto Nacional, in Santiago to
subsequently enter the school of architecture in Universidad de Chile, enter
1913 and 1919, in the actual Faculty of physical and mathematical sciences, in
Boucheff, where win in three oportunities medails in the Bellas Artes Museum
More than building buildings, aimed to create places of shelter and unique
design, with personalized details.
He was also related in politic, because in 1938 eads the campaign for president of Pedro Aguirre Cerda in the Popular
Front, and thanks to his triumph. Is appointed in 1939, Administrator of the Caja del Seguro Obrero a position he
held until February 1940. During this period he is responsible for the
construction in northern Chile of a series of collective housing for workers,
as a measure to alleviate the health crisis in the housing of the working
class. The blocks in average height known as the "colectivos", were
located in Arica, Iquique, Tocopilla and Antofagasta.
His creativity was unfolded mostly in Santiago, with works such as the
access to the funicular of San Cristóbal hill, declared a Historical Monument
in the year 2000; the Virginia Opazo architectural complex, recognized as “Zona
Típica” since 1992; the national headquarters of the Chilean architects’ guild,
declared a National Monument in 2010; the Keller housing complex in Providencia
and Casa de los Torreones, his home workshop located in the street that will
soon bear his name.
Kulczewski died in
Santiago on September 20, 1972, his ashes where scattered between the
Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris and the San Cristóbal Hill in Santiago.
