During the military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet (1973–1989), many detention and torture centers remained hidden. Some were destroyed, others were only identified years later. Of a total of 1,132 known sites, only 40 are now officially protected as monuments—many of them in a state of disrepair.
Why are many memorial sites falling into disrepair, even though they are important to the country’s memory and have been protected as national heritage?
The lecture explores this question, highlights the role of memorial sites in collective memory, and shows the fragility of their preservation – both physically and psychologically. Using selected examples such as the “Estadio Nacional,” the “Villa Grimaldi,” “Isla Dawson,” and the “Colonia Dignidad,” strategies and difficulties in preserving this special architectural heritage will be presented.
Looking at Chile also raises questions for us in Germany: Remembrance culture is not a given, but an ongoing process – here too, it is important to continually defend the confrontation with the past.
Nora Kersting, born in 1997, grew up in Bochum. As part of a student exchange program, she lived in Buenos Aires for several months, where she first became acquainted with South America. She studied architecture, first at msa in Münster and then at ISCTE in Lisbon. She then completed a double master’s degree at the TU Berlin and the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Santiago de Chile. Her master’s thesis and project, which she completed with distinction, focuses on issues of human rights and memory culture in Chile. Her interests and work lie at the intersection of space, memory culture, and social practice.
