Historical Museum housede Gabriel Gonzalez Videla. La Serena - CHILE

Direccion: Matta N° 495, La Serena, Chile
Phone: +56 512217189
Web: www.museohistoricolaserena.cl/sitio/

La Serena to the mining boom of the nineteenth century appears as an austere city of features and small population. Its buildings were more elaborate churches carved stone brought from High Peñuela. Due to the discovery of silver mine Archers in 1825, growth begins and the citys prosperity. Private housing, until then precarious, is also developed. González Videla s house, built in 1892 is a good example of the architectural richness occurred in the city during the second half of the nineteenth century.

It is one of the few houses that have been in this building are innovative in that it does not follow the traditional planimetric outline of bodies. Ademáel sector and the only nineteenth century in front of the Plaza de Armas.



The block of the Plaza de Armas where is today the home of Gonzalez Videla was coupe in the eighteenth century by the Guards in the city. A mid-eighteenth century the land is sold by the family council Cortés Monroy. The adobe house with tiled roof built on this plot goes through several families to arrive in 1887 Ariztía family. In 1892 it, ask the builder James Viera s house can be observed even today.

This is an adobe building walls and interior partitions of wood and adobe walls. The truss of the roof is of oak and covered with galvanized iron. The house is a European-style urban plant because instead of closed courtyards around which are organized traditionally the bodies of the house, it introduces a continuous building with small courtyards for light. It has two levels to the Plaza de Armas, but the rest of the building is one story. The perfectly symmetrical composition of the facades can be classified into the classic style with an eclectic approach. Both floors of the main facade fenestration openings observed in the arches, pilasters and entablature outgoing position with generous cornices.

In 1918 the property was acquired by Red Monreal family which adds a new body on the north side of the house. Town house but with independent entrance, the new building had the same size and composition of the original house. This part was destroyed in 1981 and incorporated into the square space that was created to raise it a monument to Don Gabriel González Videla, who was President of Chile between 1946 and 1952. The former president had bought the house in 1928. It was left to his family until 1977 when it was acquired by the state. In 1979 is transferred to the I. Municipalidad de La Serena, its current owner. The house, in very good condition, is today a historical archive and a museum.