Casino Enjoy Antofagasta and The Hotel del Desierto

©Guy Wenborne

©Guy Wenborne

Architects: Larraín Asociados y Cia. Ltda./ Rodrigo Larraín Gálvez - Rodrigo Larraín Illanes
Collaborators: Pedro Leyton Olguin - Alonso de Orbegoso Aspillaga - María José Peña Diez
Owner: Proyecto Integral Antofagasta S.A.
Location: Avda. Angamos 01455 – Antofagasta
General Contractor: Salfa Construcción S.A.
Structural Engineering: Santolaya Ingenieros Consultores/ Gonzalo Santolaya de Pablo -Fernando García
Built Area: 32.000 m2
Project Year: 2006-2008
Photographs: Guy Wenborne

Both the “Casino Enjoy Antofagasta” and the “Hotel del Desierto” projects are located south from city centre, within an area called “Ruinas de Huanchaca”, a former silver-melting industrial facility, which was not only abandoned but totally neglected from urban  frame. Such situation acted against ruin’s heritage and cultural legacy. The new building rises as a response to that previous scenario, in order to integrate the Huanchaca ruins either as a public landmark and by generating an urban public space able to include the ruins in the major picture, as part of the city and its cultural identity.

The main idea was to generate a monumental space housed between the ruins and the new building, bringing the ruins back to the city frame through an extension of Angámos Avenue (one of city’s main north-south axis) by the centre of such space.

The building, opposite to the ruins was designed, as a series of volumes with different materials, with the goal of generating a link of visual tension with the monument, and a central space housed within them generating an urban frame, able to give room to the ruins, culture and the city’s major events.

Although the idea was to include the new building in he same complex with the ruins, neither the chance to balance it with the monument, nor the option to look alike was attempted here. Both buildings and their different historical moments were highlighted instead. An open dialogue between the new building and the ruin’s volume, made out of contrasting materials such as tectonics and stones, was held here with attention to the local identity.  The use of copper, silk screening crystals, were developed in an artistic reinterpretation of ancient art expressions from northern Chile searching a cultural and territorial image.