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Architects: Amunátegui Valdés Architects
- Area: 105 m²
- Year: 2015
Text description provided by the architects. Avenida Italia Shop was organized around a series of architectural references. Whereas the façade draws from some of Loos’ densely composed commercial building elevations, the shop itself celebrates the still lively galleries and passages located in the neighboring downtown of Santiago.
Here, the narrowness of the plot is emphasized through a set of three freestanding columns supporting a 21m long double-vaulted ceiling. These elements enhance the already pronounced perspective of the site, which at the back features a small tower with facilities—a reenactment of so many self-referential architectural experiments of the 1970s—, and a patio mediating between these two interiors.
If the shop is long, narrow, and evenly-lit, the walls enclosing the backyard are tall and dark, amounting for a more dramatic "room" whose light changes with the hours of the day. Considered as a whole, Avenida Italia Shop is the addition of four different architectural artifacts—the Loosian façade, the passage-like interior, the room-like backyard, and the self-referential tower.
