Martin Hurtado Arquitectos

San Francisco Javier School

San Francisco Javier School
© Leonardo Finotti

SAN FRANCISCO JAVIER SCHOOL

Martin Hurtado Covarrubias & Sergio Quintana Felice Arquitectos Asociados

CATEGORY
Schools

AREA
27030.0 m²

PROJECT YEAR
2009

PHOTOGRAPHS
Leonardo Finotti

COORDINATION
Poch & asociados

CLIMATE
Ampi Ingeniería Térmica

MATERIALS
Borrar

SITE AREA
90.000 sqm

POOL
ABA piscinas

TOPOGRAPHY
Héctor Vargas

FLOOR ENGINEERING
Ricardo Carnevalli

GARBAGE EXTRACTION
Tonini & Westervelt

ELECTRICITY
Alexis Soto

COORDINATION
POCH & asociados

HEALTH INSTALLATIONS
Tefra S.A.

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Jorge González (Hormigón), Mario Wagner (Madera) 
Vialidad: David Zapata

COLLABORATORS
Iván Salas, Andrés Suarez, Sebastián Erazo, Raimundo Arteaga, Benjamín Covarrubias, Jose Manuel Casas, Álvaro Romero

Text description provided by architect.

San Francisco School is an institution linked to the jesuits, which founded the school towards 1,850, in Puerto Montt's downtown. It was in fact the first church and parish and part of its installations are now National Monument.

San Francisco Javier School
© Leonardo Finotti
San Francisco Javier School
© Leonardo Finotti

The development and densification of the area, along with the citizens moving to new residential zones located in the suburbs forced the school to relocate. This new building is located at the heart of Pelluhue Alto, a new residential zone east of the city.

After a private competition, we are chosen to develop the complex program that had to include the actual school, as well as new programs to design a building that should last 150 years.

¿How to design the installations and buildings needed to host the educational space of a school that wants to be leader and accommodate the actual and future forms of education?

San Francisco Javier School
© Leonardo Finotti

Places, spaces, technologies, buildings and programs. Many of them unknown today needed to exist in a consistent architectonic body.

We thought that the first jesuits that came to America faced a similar problem. Their installations and buildings needed to last and resist the passing years as witnesses of a mission. Studying the settlement patterns of these buildings we discovered a series of topics that repeated in each of their missions.

These are part of of the 'American Baroque', which is a "synthesis" between the christian latin greek european cultures and the indigenous american local cultures.

¿What does the jesuits missions of Chiquitanía, Chiloé or El Paraná have in common? Simple rules and order in a chaotic and dispersed world.

San Francisco Javier School
© Leonardo Finotti

The foundation of these religious centers during missions had the purpose of evangelize these thousands of infidel souls.

We discovered certain patterns like the use of roman-greek structures surrounding the closed patios, the use of regular orthogonal frames that overlap over inhospitable american soil, the construction of an horizontal plinth as a solid base from which they built blocks and patios, all elements of classic architecture (influenced maybe by architectonic treaties published during that time, like the one by Jacopo Vignola, basis of the church of Gesu in Rome).

The original school of 1859 shows this same spirit, in a different scenario.

After the jesuits were expelled of America in 1757, this second evangelizing mission arrives to help establish German settlers, that arrived to that zone during mid-nineteenth century in search of a christian education for their kids.

San Francisco Javier School
© Leonardo Finotti

These priests, educated in the classic technics of carpentry, built a church and a building that would become the school, with a model that follows many patterns of the former missioners.

The project for the new school is born with the idea to rescue these patterns:

San Francisco Javier School
© Leonardo Finotti

The construction of a plinth at the top of the hill, new grounds that will harbor all the school installations.

All the program is projected over one single building. One body with multiple parts to form one unique central inner patio protected from the wind.

San Francisco Javier School
© Leonardo Finotti

The construction with local technics and materials, a modular system that allows an easy growing by stages, wood carpentry, a single body with multiple parts, a hall protecting itself from the weather and everything surrounding a big inner space with a protected inner patio.

Windows treatment to help protection from the rain and wind, a compact building easy to heat and great details for the interiors. A single body that domains the profile of the future residential neighborhood of Puerto Montt.


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Martin Hurtado Arquitectos
T +56 2 23713010 T +56 2 29935423
Martin Hurtado Arquitectos
Los Conquistadores 1700, Providencia, Región Metropolitana, Chile
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