Chile: Crypt and House: House at Punta Pite, 2003-06 by Smiljan Radic & Crypt in the Cathedral of Santiago de Chile, 1999-2006 by Rodrigo Pere

This volume focuses on two architectural projects that, taken together, provide a telling glimpse into the Chilean culture and landscape--from its colonial legacy to its magnificent coast. Smiljan Radic's House in Punta Pite merges vernacular architecture with a crisp, Modernist sense of design to create a structure that blends intimately with the expansive coast, while Rodrigo Perez de Arce, in creating a newly designed crypt for the centuries-old cathedral of Santiago de Chile, manages to seamlessly synthesize his own contemporary language into the existing layers of the building's history. On the face of it, these two projects could not be more different, yet the conceptual framework and design constraints successfully confronted by each delineate Chile's contribution to contemporary architecture. This is the first volume in the O'Neil Ford Duograph Series, which selects two contrasting projects in order to explore the best of today's overlooked global architecture.