Santiago’s Hydrification: The Construction of a City and the Transformation of a Valle

This presentation explores the process of hydrification in Santiago de Chile, tracing how water infrastructure and urban development became mutually constitutive in the transformation of the Mapocho Valley into a modern city. This relationship became more apparent during the second half of the 20th century, when the Chilean state started to invest capital and technical expertise in the construction of dams, aqueducts, public sewage, and in guaranteeing expanded access to domestic potable water.

In this sense, the city of Santiago became a part of a complex hydroscape, a technified landscape that was developed in parallel to the struggle for housing that urban settlers were facing at the time. Understanding the complexities of the process of urban transformation of a city that faced a pressing population growth and the housing crisis, as well as the rise of hydraulic engineering in Latin America, this paper analyzes the inseparable relationship between water and urban space. Through the study of documents and academic production of the School of Engineering at Universidad de Chile, and the Ministerio de Obras Públicas archives, the presentation argues that water as both a natural element and a technology, shaped the city of Santiago and vice versa, building a hydric and urban landscape that served as a vehicle for modernization.