Through the cracks. Tensions between historiography of modern architecture in Chile and stories of UC female architects

This article reviews 11 paradigmatic historiographical constructions on modern architecture in Chile from a gender perspective. The analysis aims to understand in what terms women who studied until 1979 have been referenced in local disciplinary narratives. This historiographic review is then contrasted with a historical research work, which reconstructs, from heterogeneous sources, the stories of 20 women architects who were mostly absent from the narratives. The nature of the professional careers of these professionals, trained within the given time frame and based in Chile, suggests that they often operated from alternative fronts of architectural production. In this way, their modes of practice and topics of disciplinary interest differ from those represented in conventional forms of historiographical construction, which consider the design of innovative and avant-garde works as the main way of influencing the historical development of the discipline. Thus, the individualization of women architects, the characterization of their trajectories and the identification of shared characteristics in their work aim to contribute to the definition of new modes of historical agency in architecture. In this sense, this study not only seeks to compensate for the limited presence of women architects in the local historiography, but also to highlight alternative modes of operating, which have often been considered peripheral to the discipline. Therefore, this article is also an invitation to broaden the forms of historicizing architecture in our country.