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Can architecture
transform social and political life? Chileans were shocked at the
sight of a glass house, inhabited by a young woman, installed on a
vacant lot in downtown Santiago. The provocative project addresses
the conservatism of Chilean society, and the social and economic
suppression of women in particular, which deepened during under
Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. |
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 In post-dictatorship Chile, a
number of "resistance art" projects are attempting to deal with the
conservatism that escalated during Augusto Pinochet’s regime (1973–1990).
A recent experimental project in Santiago that was meant to address
women’s oppressed roles in Chilean society, however, left citizens
bewildered with its mixed messages. When a glass house inhabited by a
young woman appeared in a vacant downtown lot, across from a church and
down the street from the presidential palace, controversy erupted.
The architects behind the work, Arturo Torres and Jorge Christie, asked
Daniela Tobar to lead her normal, daily life in what they called the
Nautilus Project. Tobar’s routine use of the bathroom drew voyeuristic
crowds and howling criticism that the architects never imagined. When the
house was dismantled on February 14, cutting short its intended two-month
installation, Tobar had already moved out, following the attack of a
Santiago woman who was mistaken for her. Death threats also sent the
architects into hiding.
The Nautilus Project was funded in part by FONDART, a government art
agency. SaysTorres, the project was intended to challenge Chilean
society’s "troubled relationship with sex and nudity," which he attributes
to an oppressive, hypocritical society and Catholicism’s institutional
hold on the country’s moral structure. But to some, "Daniela.cam"
come-to-life seemed to be only another form of exploitation. The
architects might have avoided critics’ claims of superficial display of
female nudity if their references had been less obtuse: Nautilus was named
after a notorious, seedy Santiago cabaret where nude models perform in a
large-scale aquarium before audiences kept in darkness to protect their
anonymity; but this connection was never made known.
The Nautilus Project is a far stretch from the glass dwellings of
modern architectural discourse, such as Mies’ or Philip Johnson’s iconic
examples. The project is more of the genre of conceptual artist Dan
Graham’s Alteration of a Suburban House (1978), in which he replaced the
facade of a conventional ranch house with transparent glass; still, this
did not disclose the private section of the house.
Disillusioned, the architects want to put the whole event behind them.
The Nautilus Project can be retested elsewhere for $20,000. For interested
parties, the 12.5-square-meter house collapses neatly into a
2.5-cubic-meter box (live model not included).
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