Political discourses
Arturo Torres
Arquitecto, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 1998. Miembro de la cooperativa de exploración cultural URO1.ORG, ha trabajado en planificación urbana con Jorge Moscatto, José Rosas y Marcial Echeñique. Coautor del Proyecto Nautilus y de la Casa M7. Actualmente es profesor instructor de Taller en la Escuela de Arquitectura de la P.U.C.
Notes
1The seminar Contemporary Architecture and Chile was carried out during June 2002 at the Faculty of Architecture and City Planning of the Universidad de Chile. The architect Jorge Lobos participated in a panel entitled Architectural Commissions, together with architects Albert Tidy, Eduardo Lyon, Mathias Klotz, and Alejandro Aravena. Lobos’s presentation included the following data: 10% of architectural commissions are oriented to the high-income private sector, and 90% of them correspond to the public sector.
2 According to the National Statistics Institute, INE, the neat Internal Product per capita in Chile in 1997 was of US$ 5.182 a year, which is a historical record, after which it goes down. This yearly income amount is equal to the cost of a reinforced masonry construction of 10 m2 (at 20 UF/m2).
3 "Democracy is...the fight of a few individuals, in their culture and freedom, against the dominating logic of systems" Touraine, Alain. ¿Qué es la democracia? (What is Democracy?) Fondo de Cultura Económica, Buenos Aires,1995.
4 John Ralston Saul points out the contradiction that there is between being in favor of globalization and of democracy at the same time. In Warnken, Cristián, "Entrevista a John Ralston Saul, Canadian Thinker", Noreste 58, Santiago, July 2001.
5 Report "Are Transnational Companies More Powerful Than Countries? ", UN Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, Geneva, 2002.
6 "Traditional Political Parties are trapped within a Geographical Space". In Nodström, Kjell and Ridderstrale, Jonas, Funky Business, Prentice Hall/ Expansión, Madrid, 2000.
7 The ATTAC, Association for the Taxing of Financial Operations and Citizen Action, also known as the Association for a Tax on Financial Operations and Help for the Citizens, is an international civil movement proposing the application of a tax on international financial operations, the exercise of democratic control over financial markets and an end for the dominion of neoliberal globalization (Editor’s note).
8 Devenzio took part in the International Conference Architecture, Technology and Preservation of Wood. Norms and Research Advances organized by the Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile in April 2002.
9 The NAACP, an organization protecting the rights of African Americans, sued the Los Angeles Transport Company, depending from the Metropolitan Transit Authority. The ruling forced the city hall to buy 532 natural gas buses to serve the areas not reached by underground train lines. El Mercurio, March 17, 1999.
10 The Mediática Company carried out the study Arguments and Counterarguments in the Soap Operas War, published in its website www.mediatica.cl. Additionally, the McKinsey Company developed a private study for Channel 13, which was partially disclosed to the press.
11 Claudia Álamo, "Roberto Méndez: Authority Has Lost its Legitimacy", Siete+7 37, November 2002.
12"... The freedom of the press is not only the protection of an individual freedom, but it also gives to the weakest the possibility of being listened to, compensating the way in which the people in power can defend their interests by discretion and secrecy, mobilizing influences or collective interest networks". Alain Touraine, op. cit.
13 During the Film Retrospective, Lecture Series and Panel "The Raúl Ruiz Week", organized in August 2002 by the Franco-Chilean Cultural Institute, the Diego Portales University, the Universidad de Chile and the Chilean Film School, the aforementioned filmmaker answered a question from someone in the public with the phrase: "Luckily, there’s still some people who do not read El Mercurio".
14 Open Letter to Agustín Edwards, unpublished at the time of the writing of this piece, except for some fragments that appeared in the online newspaper primeralinea.cl; in them, Edwards’ communicational role is criticized for being too strongly linked to economic powers. Edwards is the director of El Mercurio.
15 This policy was presented by René Rizzardo, president of the National Group of Overview and Evaluation of Cultural Decentralization Protocols of the French Ministry of Culture, during the International Symposium of Cultural Policies organized by the Franco-Chilean Institute of Culture, the Goethe Institute, the Spanish Cultural Center, the Culture Division of the Chilean Education Ministry, and the Extension Activities Center of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in June 2002.