Why go
Use the Plaza de Armas area and San Francisco Church to see how colonial Santiago held onto its civic plan despite disasters. A second thread follows the river: crossings and embankments changed the relationship between the center and La Chimba across the Mapocho.
The full story
The early town grew around Plaza de Armas. The cathedral’s first foundation stone was laid in the sixteenth century, and work on San Francisco Church began in the same period. Their long histories explain why colonial Santiago is easier to read through sites and alignments than through one untouched streetscape. Buildings had to be repaired or replaced after earthquakes, while the Mapocho repeatedly flooded. Across the river lay La Chimba. In the eighteenth century, the Calicanto Bridge made that connection more substantial, and embankment works tried to control the water. The bridge itself is a historical reference rather than a visitable structure, but the river still marks the division. Late colonial building brought a different scale to the center. Italian architect Joaquín Toesca was commissioned to work on the cathedral façade and Palacio de La Moneda. Looking from the square toward La Moneda therefore traces a shift from the first colonial plan to the more formal civic architecture that closed the period.