"A picture of backwardness". The architecture of Puna de Atacama in the descriptions by travellers, scientists and govermment officials at the beginning of the XX century

Abstract

Travel literature has recently become key reading material in order to study geographical representations. The area of Puna de Atacama was densely visited and described, mainly by the end of the XIX Century, during the Chilean control, and in the first decades of the XX Century with its incorporation to Argentina. The accounts provided by these travellers, government officials and scientists became powerful tools for the creation of an imaginary functional to the interests of the States they belonged to. The aim of this paper is to analyse the texts written by some of these travellers, focusing on their observations regarding domestic architecture. Thus, existing close links among the discourse on the environment, population and architecture shall be observed.