So many landscapes, such diverse buildings

Heart’s memory erases bad remembrances and magnifies the good; thanks to this artifact we are able to prevail over the past
Gabriel García Márquez

The most usual characteristics that call into my mind the place to which I feel to belong are closely related to its landscape and architecture.
From many points of view, it is difficult not to identify with the geography and the buildings which have familiarized me with Iquique during the past few years.
And so, wherever I might be, I can call to mind the colors of the coast, its shape and the urban sites surrounding it.
But, what do these peculiarities of the landscape and of the Iquiqueño architecture have to cling so strongly into my memory?
How intense is the memory of this city when it turns into part of the discourse of our life?
Many queries do emerge and I will surely find many answers to help in understanding this memory –my memory and the shared memory– the nostalgic remembrances of that Iquique and of those that will emerge in future.
Gabriel García Márquez and Ernesto Sábato among others, have written that memory is one of the most significant human abilities and that it builds within us a fierce protection of what we own.
Memory has been, is and always will be our heritage.
Therefore, these memories, which can be metaphoric and physical, must be recognized, valued and rescued to face an uncertain destiny.



Unfortunately nowadays these remembrances of our city are coupled with the deficient work of our country to revaluate the heritage of our everyday places.
Therefore, the selection of a couple of images of this book show by themselves a chronology of the metamorphosis that Iquique has undergone and which we must tell.
Archival work fulfills two parameters: to search and to inform.
The deeper we delve into the space of documents, the more information we retain. Although in most cases the information contained in the images ––which are what we work with in an archive– ends up being catalogued as just an image.
Cities do change and it is hard to assume these changes.
Therefore, the main tools when delving into an urban territory, are to support the writing with images which then become part of a strong testimony of the past.
These would also help cities to support a contemporary urbanism policy, without disturbing the feeling of belonging or the aesthetics.
The point of view and the motivations to research into geographic space relentlessly rescue old shapes and shadows, colors, buildings and urban structures.
These images found in an archive and steeped in long-ago times, synthesize the search for a memory of the site, the place and recall that city-village configuration which no longer exists.
On its littoral plain, Iquique had shown accurately how its landscapes revealed architectural icons. That is contrary to today's reality.
Here, the landscape and architecture rebuilt in our memory are united and separate in the judgments with which we share the living space.
The finding of images, photographs and chronicles of different decades of the twentieth century is significant because we can measure the cultural and social loss of structure of a city that lost part of its natural and urban landscapes.
The visual corollary that we rescue from these images reveals an action and reflection of that place which remains linked to the memory and acts as a factual document.
However, the abandonment of the Iquiqueño memory is a constant process: it causes its urban space to face the concept of habitation as a matter of slight importance.
This is why, when we remember Iquique, we cannot but involve ourselves with these memory images and recognize the beaches, houses, avenues, hills, plazas and cars.
These arguments make clear that the life in Iquique, its landscape and architecture have a fundamental role, highlighting a procedure that diffuses the city's heritage and the identifying relation between the city and its identity.
The protection of all that means Iquique makes us more vehement regarding our present history and would generate an understanding of habitat as a legacy of our history