Recovery of Historical City Center of Huamanga.

Description of the project by the architects.

We propose not to act on the buildings, just on the ground (pacha). To revalorize the street, to reclaim the city, programming it and habilitating its future updates. Our project claims to use the political possibilities of the city, to act on the streets, on the ground, not on the buildings. We do not believe in the conservation and heritage without associated politics of urban innovation in which citizens are protagonist.

We act on the collective property that is the street instead of acting on the private properties that are the buildings. It is an urban manifesto that follows the idea of recovering the relation with Nature, introducing it again into the urban landscape. We believe it is a necessary dialogue to understand Andine culture and the pass of the time.

We do not follow the idea of supplanting  the existing city but to sum the project to its dynamics (mostly related to commercial and religious ones). We propose a full programatic system based on the democratic use of public space. What would be the relation between tradition and participative models that we want to achieve? What better than a city far from the thematic parks focused on commercial answers? What better tourist reclaim for Huamanga than to show it as an original and healthy city, inhabited by its citizens? 

ÑAMPAX [ANTES]

The city of Huamanga is situated in the South of Peru, on the East side of the Andes. It is one of the colonial cities that grew up in the half of the XVI century in Latin America that have recently been suffering deterioration due to bad management of local heritage. All along the historic neighborhood we can easily verify it from substitution to modifications of the original buildings due to uncontrolled urban speculation. However, since the year 1999 there is an ambitious plan for the recovery and development of the whole city center facing the bicentenary of peruvian independence in 2021.

Although its previous dynamics were very rich, from Easter processions to Scissor Dancers events, the public space was becoming more private and less useful for the citizens, loosing its potential as the public realm that once was.

Our proposal follows the improvement and reformation of the principal squares that structure the tourist and the whole commercial axis of the city centre. It is an eight year plan that tries to deal with the collective value of the public space the citizens received and how they can use it for their interest.

KUNANPACHA [AHORA]

We conceive the public space more accessible, more ludic and more continuous, with the possibility of being appropriated by the ctizens, whose actions contribute to the collective use of space. The city is thought more as a process and, therefore, as an unfinished entity, in constant change.

A series of coordinated actions or earthworks that by means of mechanical and hand working bring back the nature under the streets to the city. No extra material is needed, the idea is to work with the existent material on site. Thus, digging is related to the creation of a new topography.

Apart from the earthworks, we propose a series of open activities to be carried out at the public space all over the city center of Huamanga that will reach the maximum intensity in the squares as they are the best places for citizen interexchange. Three of them, are spaces related to local tradition (agriculture, crafts and gastronomy) and get involved with previous dynamics. They are related to existing spaces of parks, craftsmen and food markets along the historic center. Thus, starting from the South we distinguish the botanical area of Bolognesi Alameda, the gastronomic area next to food market at the San Francisco de Asis Square and the craftsmen area on North, at the Maria Parado’s Square. The city opens itself to culture.

DE LOS DANZAQS A LOS DANZAQNOBOTS

We can find in local tradition the figure of the Scissor Dancer (danzaq) who provides protection and good omens to agriculture crops, livestock and other need of local citizens. They come from precolonial belief and are known as guardians of Nature. They act in crews of three: a violinist, and harp and the great dancer who by its acrobatic movements invokes the power and wisdom of Nature and lead them all along the city on the dates indicated. Different crews compete dancing to be the most strong ones on their specific field.

We propose a series of artifacts or danzaqnobots that help to solve specific urban functions. They are defined as opens source in the sense that they are flexible, light and editable to become urban tools that can be managed by the citizens. Like the real dancers do, danzaqnobots crews can move around the city meeting other crews in a non scheduled way. The possibilities may change every time.

With a very light structure made of tubulars, cables and textiles, we propose different kind of artifacts that could be modified or updated freely with the intention to generate fixed and temporary qualities like ‘the music speaker’ or ‘the megaphone’ or ‘the projector’. Each object has been conceived to be used independently as well to create bleachers, benches, tables, stands, viewpoints, flower kiosks, exhibition galleries and other temporary spaces. They can even create a bigger structure on wheels that citizens could move all along the city center. They become the new guardians of Huamanga.

Megaphone. Recovery of the Historical City Center of Huamanga, Peru. Image © courtesy of Enrique Llatas and Francisco Rojas.

Q’AYAMINCHA (DENTRO DE POCO)

We start with progressive earthworks, so that by the year of the peruvian bicentenary in 2021 all of them are ready. Thanks to this work with the Pacha (earth) we estimate that the colonial heritage remains are enhanced and that their private owners feel this as a calling to participate on the recovery program. In the meanwhile, the citizens of Huamanga are making use of all the devices or tools (danzaqnobots) that will move along the city center, giving support to wifi connections, public communications or streaming support for local main events. All of that together makes Huamanga part of a network of relationships in which even in different parts of the city, interaction is happening.

We believe in a dynamic urbanism, a probable city of relations. Far away from determine their future, we bring into action new open source tools over which the citizens have the last word.

Quoting John Hejduk in Victims about the site on Berlin:

‘It is a place to be created in two periods of 30 years. A growing space, in a time-increment increase. One possibility is that all structures can be built, another possibility is that one of them is built, a third possibility is that only a few were built...The decision depends on the city and its citizens’.