CHAPTER 1
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Chile has had a complicated political scene from the sixties with various political ideologies taking centre stage, and as a result has affected the availability of social housing. Throughout Chilean housing history, its deficiency has remained a consistent theme. Chile may not be as sophisticated as Europe’s advanced nations, but its GDP grants the country a developed status. Today, “Chile is seen as a positive example to the world, since its macroeconomic policies have proved to be solid and consistent and have provided undoubted economic growth to the country even at times of serious crisis in the Region” (Paola Jiron, M. 2004: 2). As a once developing country throughout the twentieth century, policies have shifted repeatedly from investments into the welfare and into economy. The correlation between political ideology and housing has been evident within the case of Chile. The socialist era prioritised nationalising its industries and increasing accessibility to housing for the poorest members of the community. Contrary to the neoliberal experiment, when industries where privatised and housing provision suffered. Neoliberalisms inception into Chilean governmentality was due to its reception by General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. When he sought out of aid from Chilean economists that were educated in the United States, The Chicago Boys. This group initiated the first national experiment of Neoliberalism within policy making, which was monitored from a far in countries like the US and UK. Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher have been champions of this ideology and if it wasn’t for the perceived success of the Chilean economy, the world may have been a different place. Born in this era were Chilean nationals Alejandro Aravena and Andres Iacobelli, whom at the start of the twenty-first century, founded the architectural practice Elemental and initiated their first social housing project, Quinta Monroy. Working within the state and its tight budgetary framework, they developed at the University of Catolica the Parallel Building scheme, an incremental building method of rehousing one hundred families living within a shanty town development within the city of Iquique. In 2016 the project’s concept was recognised by the architectural world and Alejandro Aravena received the Pritzker Prize Laureate, the most prestigious award for an architect to receive. An award granted on the basis of its social endeavours, whilst resting the notion of incrementality on the success of the project. Beneficiaries of the “half a good house” were forced to complete the construction of their homes with the limited savings they had, whilst shrouded amongst the heading it “gives economic opportunity to the less privileged,”
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