Search

The article analyzes the three housing complexes built by the Sugar Refinery Company of Viña del Mar (CRAV) in the city of Penco, in the Bío-Bío Region of Chile, which are today considered part of the architectural and historical heritage of that locality. Namely the CRAV Campus, Desiderio Guzmán and Villa Los Radales. The paper describes urbanarchitectural principles present in these groups, their programs, types of housing, surface and materiality. Additionally, the devices of social control deployed in order to discipline workers in their living spaces are also described. These three developments were part of a larger industrial area that defined the manufacturing character of the metropolitan area of the city of Conception, constituting a housing area adjacent to the production facilities of the CRAV-Penco. Furthermore, they provided workers with living standards associated with modernity, through access to quality housing and multiple urban facilities that fostered the creation of the socalled refining family. The CRAV Campus operated as a closed site subject to greater corporate control than the other two groups analyzed. Currently, these housing complexes constitute a recognizable industrial district in the town and is part of its tangible and intangible heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]