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Southern Arts and Culture by All Southern Chile
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...Pable Fierro is trying to capture that character a building only acquires through age and weathering...
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Southern Chile's architecture is a
unique reflection of the glory years of Chile, before the Panama
canal cut South America off from the major shipping lanes and Germans
immigrants flocked to settle in places like Puerto Varas and Valdivia
in the South. Sadly, the social fad in Chile is to modernize and
prove to the World that Chile is a developed country by using as much
concrete and steal as possible, often at the expense of southern Chile's
classic Victorian style homes.
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One man, Pablo Fierro, has taken to
preserving the architecture of southern Chile in his sketches and
paintings. From his studio along the shores of Lago Llanquihue (Lake
Llanquihue) in Puerto Varas, Pablo Fierro is trying to capture that
character a building only acquires through age and weathering.
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Restoration of southern Chile's older
buildings is still a relatively rare thing. This perhaps is in part
because of a lack of appreciation, and in part simply because many of
the old houses have deteriorated to such an extent as to make saving
them too expensive. At times it would not be possible because the
original woods are endangered, not to mention the skilled workers who
can adequately do justice to the structure.
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Pablo Fierro has is on a
mission to promote the beauty and an appreciation for the crumbling
old buildings of southern Chile. He currently runs a museum and
gallery owned by the city of Puerto Varas with financing from a private company where he displays a
collection of southern Chile's antiques alongside his own paintings and
drawings of Chile's architecture. He operates this museum based on
visitor donations.
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His dream is to build a museum and gallery in a
classic Victorian style house to permanently preserve this southern
Chile heritage and history. If anyone would like to help, you can
contact him through All Southern Chile or through his own website
www.pablofierro.cl
where you will find more photos of his drawings and information about
the preservation project. If you make it to Puerto Varas, we highly
recommend that you stop in at his museum. Don't forget to drop a little
something in his donation tray.
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