La manzana de la Catedral en Santiago de Chile: expansión y contrucción urbana, 1874-1913

this article examines the process of morphologic development of santiago's cathedral block, between 1874 and 1913. during this period the block experienced radical transformations and alterations that were linked to a phenomenon of urban expansion and contraction. this process reflected the gradual redefinition of the interior and exterior contours of the buildings, the transformations of building typologies and of urban densification. this phenomenon of expansion became evident with the hegemony reached by the church as owner of most of the buildings on the block. the article proposes that the entirety of the block, as well as most of its emblematic buildings- metropolitan cathedral, archbishop's palace and the sagrario parish - were permeable to social and political factors, to the changes that were affecting the church as an institution, the permanent transformations in the urban fabric and the modernization of santiago from the last decades of the nineteenth century.